Walgreen Clinics, Largest U.S. Drugstore Chain, Expand Treatment Options

The largest U.S. drugstore chain is expanding its treatment options to help out some new customers, including millions who will gain insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

Over 330 of Walgreen's 370 Take Care Clinics in stores are now offering chronic-care services that will advise consumers on whether to seek preventative care, including laboratory tests, according to the Deerfield, Ill.-based company.

Walgreen rivals, such as CVS Caremark and Rite Aid, are also expanding in efforts to compete with the drug store-adding on to filling prescriptions and giving flu shots into chronic care traditionally completed by doctors. 

Walgreen said it's responding to the aging population, the rising prevalence of long-term ailments and complaints by consumers about a lack of access to doctors.

"The existing gaps in patient care and demands on an already overburdened health care system are all projected to worsen with an influx of new patients under health care reform," Heather Helle, divisional vice president of Walgreens consumer solutions group, said in a press release. "Walgreens is stepping up to be part of the solution. As innovative care delivery models emerge, we are uniquely positioned to play an integral role in addressing the needs of patients, payers, and providers and to help shape the future of health care delivery in the U.S." 

Some family doctors have responded to competition with retail clinics, and 75 percent of them now offer same-day scheduling while more than half have weekend or evening hours according to Jeffrey Cain, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, a Leawood, Kansas-based group representing 106,000 doctors.

The academy opposes retail clinics providing services beyond "minor acute illnesses" and in particular objects to "the management of chronic medical conditions in this setting," according to a statement on its website.

"Our concern is that expansion of retail clinics from urgent care into chronic care means they may get a piece of their diabetes here, blood pressure there," Cain, a family physician in Denver, said Wednesday in a telephone interview. "Our health care system is already fragmented."