Health Plan Weekly

At the firm’s annual investor conference, CVS Health Corp. executives promoted closer vertical integration and promised to move even further into care provision. CVS, which acquired Aetna in 2018, emphasized virtual care and its retail HealthHUB clinics in recent months, and it has indicated it has a strong interest in acquiring providers, particularly in primary care.

Other large carriers have made similar moves in recent years. UnitedHealth Group owns both the U.S.’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealthcare, and a growing provider arm, OptumCare. Humana Inc. has moved to acquire in-home and primary care providers. Meanwhile, CVS’s largest retail pharmacy competitor, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., is purchasing clinics with the goal of becoming a major primary and urgent care provider. According to CVS Health CEO Karen Lynch, the firm’s position astride all three businesses — retail, care delivery and benefits management — is why it will perform better than its rivals.

Recently, the Biden administration unveiled a plan to curb COVID-19 infections that promises forthcoming guidance “to clarify that individuals who purchase OTC [over the counter] COVID-19 diagnostic tests will be able to seek reimbursement from their group health plan or health insurance issuer and have insurance cover the cost during the public health emergency.”

Health insurers and health care policy researchers have a bevy of questions and concerns about this plan — and at least one public health expert has floated a different approach.