Drink plenty of fluids... and open a lot of new "HealthHUBs" by 2021. That's the prognosis for CVS, whose stock is down 14% in the last year. It announced yesterday it's remodeling a fifth of the floorspace in 1,500 CVS stores to create HealthHUBs: Part pharmacy, part hospital, and part urban wellness retreat. We also noticed these perks:
- "Care Concierge": Someone who walks you through how your medical insurance works (only 9% of Americans understand 4 key health insurance terms).
- A little bit of yoga: Each spot gets wellness rooms (+ dieticians) so you can practice your practice.
- A serious amount of lab work: Blood-testing and health screenings will be going down, using medical equipment that’s permanently installed.
Who's the adult responsible?... Aetna. CVS acquired the health insurer last year — And that gave it direct access to Aetna's 22M members. Next, it's scaling HealthHUBs from a pilot version in Texas, to Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Tampa first. And it's got 10K of its own pharmacies to potentially freshen up after revamping the first 1.5K.
This is about empty shelves, not your heart rate... Candy. Protein bars. Tissue paper. Your random go-to's used to be bought at drugstores — Now they're bought online (via Amazon). That's given CVS empty space, so it's investing big on its expertise in health to fill that gap: Turn its pharmacies into immersive experiences (think, 6pm vinyasa flow after the eye exam).