Quote: (02-05-2014 08:51 PM)Drazen Wrote:
I don't see how this really hurts them. A very small percentage of their sales is tobacco. Who stops into CVS to pick up a pack of smokes?
Also, by doing this, they are setting themselves to replace doctors clinics in the future as companies reduce costs. These minute clinics are the future. They are getting into the soon to be very profitable business of providing cheaper, lower cost healthcare when the lines at the doc due to Obamacare start getting out of hand.
I think you're right on this. Cigarettes are a low-margin business, while minute clinics are where the big money is. Most insurers pay a set amount for the procedures there (flu shot, etc) so CVS will just use their economy of scale to keep their costs of providing those procedures relatively low. I'm sure they can underprice doctor's offices since those offices have no scale and are generally inefficient.
I actually use clinics like this for some care, even though I have insurance and a regular doctor. The clinics have better hours and I don't really need to go to my doctor's to receive a flu shot. This is definitely the future of medicine -- use walk-in clinics for the basic stuff, and go to your "real" doctor for more complicated issues.