WOONSOCKET, R.I. — MinuteClinic has opened its first walk-in medical clinics in Northern California, the San Francisco Bay Area and coastal southeastern North Carolina.
The CVS Caremark retail health clinic subsidiary said Wednesday that the new California locations are inside CVS/pharmacy stores in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.
Three MinuteClinics are now operating in Foster City, San Jose and Sunnyvale, Calif., CVS/pharmacy stores. In November, four more clinics are slated to begin treating patients in Burlingame, Campbell, Mountain View and Santa Clara, Calif.
MinuteClinic has 35 locations elsewhere in California, ranging from the San Fernando Valley to San Diego.
"Since opening the first clinics in Southern California in 2007, MinuteClinic has helped expand access to high-quality, convenient and affordable care to thousands of residents who have visited convenient CVS/pharmacy locations near where they live and work," stated MinuteClinic president Andrew Sussman, who’s also senior vice president/associate chief medical officer at CVS Caremark. "MinuteClinic can help support the primary care medical home in California at a time when the nation faces physician shortages coupled with increased patient demand as a result of the Affordable Care Act and an aging population."
In North Carolina, MinuteClinic opened a new location inside a CVS drug store in Wilmington, marking the 54th MinuteClinic in the state. Plans call for more clinics to open in Carolina Beach and Leland, N.C., later this month. The first store-based MinuteClinic opened in North Carolina in 2005.
CVS Caremark has said it plans to open 150 new MinuteClinics across the country this year.
Last week, MinuteClinic opened its first retail health clinics in Louisiana, representing the 27th state where it has a presence. And late last month, MinuteClinic made its debut in Hawaii with the opening of the first of seven planned clinics inside Longs Drug Stores over the following two weeks.
Overall, MinuteClinic has more than 700 locations nationwide, including in the District of Columbia.
