CVS Caremark Corp. is targeting the District’s wealthier neighborhoods for its next expansion of in-store basic medical clinics as competition intensifies for the city’s discretionary health care dollars.
The pharmacy chain is seeking regulatory approval for new clinics inside existing CVS stores in the West End, at 2240 M St. NW, and in Glover Park, at 2226 Wisconsin Ave. NW. If approved, the clinics would open in late 2013 and be the chain’s fifth and sixth D.C. locations.
Those recent requests follow the Oct. 24 opening of the city’s fourth MinuteClinic, inside a store in Palisades at 4859 MacArthur Blvd. NW.
Dr. Andrew Sussman, MinuteClinic president and senior vice president of CVS Caremark, said the District has been a “successful” market to date. The company controls about half the market in retail clinics, which don’t take appointments, are staffed by less expensive nurse practitioners instead of doctors, and focus on common illnesses and preventative care.
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“Demand for our services is growing rapidly and we’ve recently seen some of the highest volumes in our history, Sussman said, noting that MinuteClinic hopes to grow from 600 existing clinics to 1,000 nationwide by 2016.
In part because of the District’s especiallyexpansive certificate-of-need laws, the retail clinic concept has been slower to arrive in the city than in suburban Maryland and northern Virginia, where they are commonplace and continue to expand.
That lack of distributed, primary health care options, combined with the District’s growing population of commercially insured, generally healthy young people, have made the city a key target for several companies looking to open clinics in the city’s prime submarkets, including CVS’ direct competitor, Walgreens Co.
MinuteClinic broke into the District in 2009, first opening two locations in more middle-class neighborhoods in northeast D.C. and one in Tenleytown, near American University. It originally hoped to open first in the affluent Northwest neighborhoods it’s now targeting, but District officials convinced them to open first in Northeast.