CVS Closing 25 Minuteclinic locations in LA market, leaving only 11

[ClownLoach]

Sorry for the pay wall article but the OC Register is reporting CVS is closing 25 of their Minuteclinics, leaving only 11 in the greater LA market. They do not mention if this is nationwide or just this area. Only specific closure mentioned is Mission Viejo. I'll look for a free article.

https://www.ocregister.com/2024/01/30/c ... alifornia/

[storewanderer]

The Minute Clinics in my area are all screwed up. One has been temporarily closed for weeks or months. The other three only operate 4 days per week.

CVS has been closing a lot of things lately. I am not the least bit surprised. This is the poorest of poor store operators and it appears they can't run these other customer facing businesses profitably.

I'd say they should stick to what they know but I'm not sure what that is. Easy money businesses like insurance and pharmacy benefits management I guess.

[ClownLoach]

I just think it's baffling considering they spent a fortune on Aetna with the idea that they would utilize their abundant retail space to add clinics and doctors offices. They wanted to create an ecosystem for their insured patients to basically do everything at a CVS facility, see the doctor, fill the prescription, and buy additional products from HealthHUB.

Isn't it odd that all at once, all three major national pharmacy chains are more screwed up than ever (CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid)? Costco pharmacy is doing fine. Walmart pharmacy is apparently doing fine. No signs of trouble at Kroger or Albertsons run pharmacies. And independents are quietly reopening like that one I mentioned that came back to my hometown after a couple of decades (they had sold out to Walgreens).

I haven't dug into quarterly reports, but I wonder how the pharmacies that seem to run well are performing (Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons, Costco, Sam's)? I'll bet they're all up, up, up in business, and the truth is that the big 3 are struggling not for whatever reasons they're giving as excuses but instead because anyone who can go elsewhere is choosing to do exactly that to avoid their bad service and crappy stores.

[Alpha8472]

Perhaps the Minute clinics are closing because those CVS stores are slated for closure.

[ClownLoach]

Perhaps the Minute clinics are closing because those CVS stores are slated for closure.

When they were rolling them out, they prioritized high volume locations they could also remodel with HealthHUB. They basically put these only in their best stores. Again the entire idea was this would be the future of CVS, almost like Kaiser where you do everything in one building.

It sounds like staffing is a serious problem that torpedoed this, but it makes sense... If you're a Nurse Practitioner, you can work at whatever hospital you wish to and practically write your own paycheck. Why would anyone choose to work for the penny pinching misers at CVS? And if they can't keep it open because of no staffing, then might as well close it.

As for the only named closure in the article, Mission Viejo, CVS renewed their lease long term on that site several years ago and is committed to being part of the remodel of that center. They also had chosen that store for the now-dead Beauty 360 concept store because of its high performance. So the store itself definitely isn't closing.

[HCal]

Isn't it odd that all at once, all three major national pharmacy chains are more screwed up than ever (CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid)? Costco pharmacy is doing fine. Walmart pharmacy is apparently doing fine. No signs of trouble at Kroger or Albertsons run pharmacies. And independents are quietly reopening like that one I mentioned that came back to my hometown after a couple of decades (they had sold out to Walgreens).

I think one factor is that Costco, Walmart, etc., don't really depend on their pharmacies. They are a small part of the business, just an extra convenience to get people into the store. They may even be run at break-even or a small loss. The major pharmacy chains can't really do that. They have to make the pharmacy profitable because it's the bulk of their business.

I'm not seeing any growth in independents, but nice to know it's happening in other places.

[Bagels]

Here's an article from the LA Times with a full closure listing:
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/ ... geles-area

Looks like only the Irvine location will survive in Orange County which is ironic considering it never has any business.

I'm surprised CVS is still operating nearly 1,200 MinuteClinics nationally. After a wave of mass closures (over a decade ago), I thought the concept would be pretty much extinct. Walgreens and Rite Aid shuttered all of their clinics, while Kroger is barely clinging onto a handful. That's in spite of major insurers for many years waiving or reducing co-pays on visits to such clinics.

[ClownLoach]

Here's an article from the LA Times with a full closure listing:
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/ ... geles-area

Looks like only the Irvine location will survive in Orange County which is ironic considering it never has any business.

I'm surprised CVS is still operating nearly 1,200 MinuteClinics nationally. After a wave of mass closures (over a decade ago), I thought the concept would be pretty much extinct. Walgreens and Rite Aid shuttered all of their clinics, while Kroger is barely clinging onto a handful. That's in spite of major insurers for many years waiving or reducing co-pays on visits to such clinics.

@Bagels there is a gem of an article on the topic in your LA Times link. Unfortunately might be pay walled.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/ ... t-happened

[Alpha8472]

Isn't it odd that all at once, all three major national pharmacy chains are more screwed up than ever (CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid)? Costco pharmacy is doing fine. Walmart pharmacy is apparently doing fine. No signs of trouble at Kroger or Albertsons run pharmacies. And independents are quietly reopening like that one I mentioned that came back to my hometown after a couple of decades (they had sold out to Walgreens).

I think one factor is that Costco, Walmart, etc., don't really depend on their pharmacies. They are a small part of the business, just an extra convenience to get people into the store. They may even be run at break-even or a small loss. The major pharmacy chains can't really do that. They have to make the pharmacy profitable because it's the bulk of their business.

I'm not seeing any growth in independents, but nice to know it's happening in other places.

Costco and Walmart run their pharmacies well for the most part by delivering good service. They staff their pharmacies well so that customers are given good service.

CVS and Walgreens do not care about customer service. They cut staffing to the lowest possible level and overwork staff. It definitely shows. CVS and Walgreens employees are stressed out and exhausted. They all hate their jobs. Customers who call in on the telephone get put on hold for a long time.

Lines at the pharmacy are long. There are long wait times to fill prescriptions.

Walmart pharmacy for example emphasizes customer service scores. The employees are made to deliver the best customer service. A 4 out of 5 on a customer experience survey is considered a failure. Employees are forced to call customers and apologize for any bad customer surveys. Plans of actions need to be taken and employees are expected to deliver the utmost customer service in the future for every customer with a bad survey.

Safeway pharmacies used to be run with good staffing, but that changed several years ago. Staffing was cut and the pharmacies became understaffed. Safeway cut pharmacy employee hours at many pharmacies so that they were only working 5 hours at a time. Work hours were reduced. Employees hated that. You cannot even get another job part time to make ends meet.

When you treat your employees poorly it will backfire and drive away customers.

[storewanderer]

Safeway runs an archaic old pharmacy software, it looks like MS DOS or something. I'm not sure what happened to the old Osco/Sav-On software Albertsons used to use which was better/more modern... must be sitting in the dust bin in Minnesota at Supervalu... maybe still works at a few Cub pharmacies or something.

I still see some pretty busy Safeway pharmacies however, and everyone working in them seems to be in a pretty good mood. Significantly better/more relaxed attitude there than Walgreens or CVS.