In a Tuesday interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer, CVS CEO Karen Lynch discussed her company’s expansion into primary care, saying it is a cornerstone of the company’s health services.
In 2023, CVS closed two multibillion-dollar deals, acquiring home health service Signify and Oak Street Health, which focuses on providing primary care for seniors. Like drugstore peer Walgreens, CVS has spent the last several years growing into a larger, more multi-faceted health-care company.
“Think about the primary care as the quarterback to your health care,” Lynch said, adding that in-home care can be especially helpful for patients. “When we’re in the home, we get to open up the refrigerator and see if you’re eating well. We get to look and see if there’s rugs that you might trip on.”
Lynch also touched on other aspects of CVS’s services such as Caremark, its subsidiary that manages prescription drug benefits for health insurers. She said that through Caremark, CVS is trying to drive competition and lower costs for consumers.
The company is also making changes to its retail arm. According to Lynch, CVS plans to close 900 stores as well as remove self-checkout from several locations.
“We really looked at density, and we said, sometimes there was a store on one corner and a store on another corner,” Lynch said. “We continue to evaluate our store closures, but we still have total access to care – 85% of Americans are within a ten-mile radius of a CVS.”