Walgreens to add up to 700 primary care clinics

In-store, doctor-led clinics to use nurses, social workers, therapists.

Walgreens will squeeze primary care clinics into as many as 700 of its U.S. stores over the next few years in a major expansion of the care it offers customers.

The drugstore chain said Wednesday it will partner with VillageMD to set up doctor-led clinics that also use nurses, social workers and therapists to provide regular treatment for patients.

The retailer will redesign stores that get the clinics, narrow their shelves and pull products like tobacco and other grocery items to make room.

“We are very confident that this is the right model for the future,” said Alex Gourlay, Walgreens global co-chief operating officer.

He noted that the primary care clinics will make it easier for pharmacists to work with doctors to make sure medicines don’t conflict or to help explain prescriptions to patients.

Insurers and other payers have become more interested in covering care or assistance delivered outside the doctor’s office. The idea is to keep patients, especially those with chronic conditions, healthy and out of expensive hospitals or emergency rooms.

Last year, CVS Health laid out plans to expand a new store format that provides dietitians and helps people monitor chronic diseases but does not include doctors.

Deerfield, Illinois-based Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. runs more than 9,200 stores in the United States. It expects to open 500 to 700 primary care clinics in 30 markets in the next five years.

Walgreens said in a release that it intends to build “hundreds more” after that. It will aim to put the clinics in areas that may have a shortage of primary care doctors or an older-than-usual population.

The company runs thousands of stores in other countries too, but officials said they were not planning to expand their primary care clinics internationally.

Despite receiving billions in federal aid, United Airlines announced Wednesday it may furlough nearly 36,000 employees Oct. 1.

The number represents more than one-third of the Chicago-based airline’s workforce.

Government grants received through the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package known as the CARES Act require airlines to keep front-line workers on the job through Sept. 30. United signed a letter of intent this week to accept roughly $4.5 billion in loans through the program. But company executives said with demand for air travel unlikely to return in 2020, they have no choice but to warn employees that they may be let go.

“The reality is that United simply cannot continue at our current payroll level past October 1 in an environment where travel demand is so depressed,” the airline said in a memo sent to employees. “And involuntary furloughs come as a last resort, after months of company-wide cost-cutting and capital-raising.”

Under federal law, most companies with 100 or more employees must give workers 60 days notice of mass layoffs or plant closings.

The number of furloughs could be fewer depending on how many employees take advantage of early retirement, voluntary separation

KEITH SRAKOCIC / ASSOCIATED PRESS 2013 Walgreens will redesign its stores that get primary care clinics, narrow their shelves and pull products like tobacco and other grocery items to make room.