History of CVS
Consumer Value Stores (CVS) was founded in 1963 by three partners: brothers Stanley and Sidney Goldstein and Ralph Hoagland, who grew the venture from a parent company, Mark Steven, Inc., that helped retailers manage their health and beauty aid product lines. The business began as a chain of health and beauty aid stores, but within several years, pharmacies were added. To expand, the company joined the Melville Corporation, which managed a string of retail businesses. Following a period of growth in the 1980s and 1990s, CVS Corporation spun off from Melville in 1996, becoming a standalone company trading on the New York Stock Exchange as . In December 2017, CVS agreed to acquire Aetna for $69billion and completed the acquisition in November 2018. Legal issues related to the merger were resolved in September 2019. In February 2020, CVS Health announced changes to its board of directors, whose size was reduced from 16 to 13 directors. In 2021, CVS Health was ranked 4th on theCompany name
CVS, begun in Lowell, Massachusetts, by brothers Stanley and Sidney Goldstein and their partner Ralph Hoagland, later had to sell to the Melville Corporation, formerly based inHistory
1960s
The first Consumer Value Store (CVS), selling health and beauty products, was founded in 1963, in Lowell, Massachusetts, by brothers Stanley and Sidney Goldstein and Ralph Hoagland. By 1964, CVS had 17 stores that sold primarily beauty products. In 1967, CVS opened its first stores with pharmacy departments in Warwick, Rhode Island, and1970s
By 1970, CVS was operating 100 stores in New England and the1980s
* 1983: Hemophilia patient home health care is launched. * 1988: CVS acquires Heartland Drug, a small pharmacy company in the Boston area giving it stores in the Boston metro including Watertown Square and Harvard Square.1990s
* 1990: CVS acquired 500 Peoples Drug stores, establishing the company in new mid-Atlantic markets including Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. * 1994: CVS launched PharmaCare, a pharmacy benefit management (PBM) company. * 1996: CVS Corporation became a standalone company trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the "CVS" ticker. Stanley Goldstein was the company's first chairman. * 1997: CVS acquired over 2,500 Revco drug stores, establishing the company in additional Midwestern, Southeastern and Eastern states. * 1998: CVS acquired 207 stores from2000s
* 2000: CVS acquired Stadtlander pharmacy from Bergen Brunswig Corporation, making CVS ProCare the largest specialty pharmacy in the U.S. at the time. * 2001: CVS/pharmacy launched the ExtraCare loyalty card program. Within a year, 30million customers enrolled to earn rewards and receive discounts. * 2004: CVS purchased 1,268 Eckerd drug stores and Eckerd Health Services, Eckerd's PBM/Mail-order pharmacy business, from JCPenney. The purchase expanded the company's footprint in Texas, Florida and other southern states. * 2006: CVS acquired 700 freestanding drug store operations of supermarket chain Albertsons, including stores trading under the Osco Drug and Sav-On Drugs banners. * 2006: CVS acquired Minneapolis-based MinuteClinic, as a wholly owned subsidiary of CVS Corporation. * 2007: CVS Corporation and Caremark Rx, Inc. complete their transformative merger, creating CVS Caremark, an integrated pharmacy services provider, and the corporate headquarters remained in Woonsocket, RI. Tom Ryan, the chairman and CEO of CVS remained president and CEO of CVS Caremark Corporation, while Caremark's Edwin Crawford became the chairman of the board. * 2008: CVS Caremark acquired 541 stores from Longs Drugs Stores Corp in California, Hawaii, and Nevada.2010s
* 2011: Larry Merlo succeeds Tom Ryan as president and CEO of CVS Caremark. Merlo joined CVS/pharmacy in 1990, through the acquisition of People's Drug. * 2014: CVS Caremark acquired Coram, the specialty infusion services and enteral nutrition business unit of Apria Healthcare Group Inc. * 2014: CVS Caremark announced it would stop selling cigarettes and tobacco products in all of its CVS/pharmacy stores. * 2014: CVS Caremark removed all cigarettes and tobacco products from its CVS/pharmacy stores and launched a national smoking cessation program. The company also changed its corporate name to CVS Health. * 2014: CVS Health acquired 33 Miami-based Navarro Discount Pharmacy stores, the largest Hispanic-owned drugstore chain the United States. * 2015: CVS Health acquired Omnicare, provider of pharmacy services to long-term care facilities. * 2015: CVS Health acquires Target Corporation's 1,600+ pharmacies and retail medical clinics inside Target stores. CVS has begun operating them through a store-within-a-store format. * 2017: CVS announced they would be installing 25 vending machines in high traffic areas like, bus terminals,2020s
* On November 18, 2021, CVS Health announced that the company plans to close 900 stores nationwide over the next three years because of what executives described as changes in consumer shopping behavior, population, and the future of health care needs. The closures would represent approximately 10 percent of stores in the U.S. * On December 2, 2021, CVS Health announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft to improve personalized care and digital health.Acquisition of Aetna
On November 28, 2018, CVS Health completed the acquisition of Aetna. On December 3, 2018, U.S. District JudgeAcquisition of Signify Health
In September 2022, CVS Health announced that it reached an agreement to buy at-home health company Signify Health for roughly $8 billion. It came one month after it announced a plan to move into primary care by the end of the year.Finances
Subsidiaries and assets
CVS Pharmacy
CVS Pharmacy is one of the largest retail pharmacy chains in the United States, with 9,600 stores located in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, operating primarily under the CVS Pharmacy, CVS, Longs Drugs, Navarro Discount Pharmacy and Drogaria Onofre names. CVS Pharmacy fills more than one of every five prescriptions in the United States, and 85% of U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a CVS Pharmacy. The ExtraCare loyalty program boasts over 70million cardholders, making it the largest retail loyalty program in the country.MinuteClinic
MinuteClinic retail medical clinics operate inside CVS Pharmacy locations within the United States. It is the largest walk-in medical clinic in the United States, with over 1,100 locations in 33 states and theCVS Caremark
CVS Caremark provides comprehensive prescription benefit management services including mail order pharmacy services, specialty pharmacy andCVS Specialty
CVS Specialty is the specialty pharmacy division that provides specialty pharmacy services for individuals with chronic or genetic diseases who require complex and expensive drug therapies. CVS Health operate 24 retail specialty pharmacy stores and 11 specialty mail order pharmacies, making them the largest specialty pharmacy in the United States.Longs Drugs
Longs Drugs is a retail pharmacy chain with approximately 40 drug stores throughout the state of Hawaii. The company was acquired by CVS Health in October 2008, and is operated as a separate brand.Navarro Discount Pharmacies
Accordant
Accordant provides rare disease case management and care management services for patients with rare, chronic diseases and their caregivers. Clients are primarily health plans, employers, and third party administrators (TPAs). The company is operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of CVS Health Corporation.Coram
Coram is one of the nation's largest providers of infusion services, clinical and compliance monitoring and individual patient counseling and education. Coram cares for 140,000 patients annually through a national network of more than 85 locations as well as the largest home infusion network in the United States. The company was acquired by CVS Health in August 2015, and is operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of CVS Health Corporation.Omnicare
Omnicare is a provider of pharmacy services to the long-term care market for patients in skilled nursing and assisted living facilities throughout North America. The company was acquired by CVS Health in August 2015, and is operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of CVS Health Corporation.HealthHUB
HealthHUBs operate inside of select CVS Pharmacy locations and offer a variety of additional services in addition to traditional CVS locations. HealthHUB locations offer and expanded variety of Sleep Apnea, Durable Medical Equipment, Home and Health technology, and compression therapy. HealthHUBs are staffed by Care Concierges who are experts in HealthHub products and services. In addition, MinuteClinic locations that are HealthHub stores have expanded services and hire Medical Assistants, Registered Nurses, and Licensed Practical and Vocational Nurses to help support the Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants.Store brands and private label brands
CVS Health offers a number of over-the-counter private label brands in their retail pharmacy stores, including grocery brands Gold Emblem™ and Gold Emblem Abound™; household products under the Total Home name; preservative-free vitamins and supplements under the Radiance PLATINUM line; and beauty and skin products through the Beauty 360, Nuance Salma Hayek, Makeup Academy, Skin+Pharmacy, Blade and Essence of Beauty lines.Community involvement and philanthropy
* The CVS Caremark Charitable Trust was established to provide funding for health care, education and community involvement initiatives in communities where CVS/pharmacy stores are located. * Since 1978, CVS Samaritan Vans have provided free roadside assistance to motorists and the community in numerous cities. They are "emergency response vehicles" that patrol select major freeways of Chicago, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Boston, Detroit, Indianapolis, Providence and Washington, D.C., in search of motorists in need. The drivers have a multitude of talents and certifications. They are Nationally Certified Auto Mechanics, State Certified Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) or Paramedics, and Nationally Certified Animal Control Officers. They are capable of making numerous on-site auto repairs, administering medical help, calming a tense situation or using their communication equipment to summon the state police or other assistance. Each year, the CVS Samaritan Vans travel about , checking and assisting nearly 50,000 people, and responding to more than 61,000 roadway incidents. * Played at the Rhode Island Country Club, the CVS Caremark Charity Classic was established to raise money for the support of non-profit agencies throughout New England. Since 1999, it has raised over $8million for charity. The event has featured golf legends such as Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Hale Irwin, and Gary Player along with today's top stars like David Duval, Chris DiMarco, Davis Love III, & Scott McCarron.Tobacco products removed from stores
On February 5, 2014, CVS announced that the company would discontinue the sale of all tobacco and cigarette products from their stores by October 1, 2014. In a statement explaining the change, CVS president and CEO Larry J. Merlo said, "We came to the decision that cigarettes and providing health care just don't go together in the same setting."Criticism and controversy
On August 22, 2001, CVS Corp was sued for purchasing Trio Drugs' records which should be kept confidential.Elensys
In 1998, '' The Washington Post'' reported that CVS Corporation appeared to be sharingBoston prescriptions
During 2005, a series of prescription mistakes came to light in some of CVS Corporation'sHealth and Medicare fraud
In the late 1980s and early 1990s Caremark RX was involved in a number of health fraud and Medicare fraud scandals. The combined price to settle this dispute with the U.S. Government cost the company over $250million.Pharmaceutical kickbacks
In 2005, Caremark Rx paid $137.5million to settle federal lawsuits filed by whistleblowers that accused a company it acquired in 2003, of improper dealings with pharmaceutical manufacturers. The lawsuits said that the acquired company, AdvancePCS, accepted kickbacks from drug makers to promote their products over those of rivals under contracts with government programs including the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program, the Mail Handlers Health Benefit Program and Medicare health maintenance plans. There was no admission of wrongdoing by Caremark or AdvancePCS. CVS Caremark Corp. has changed their practices. The formulary revision process considers manufacturer rebates, payments from drug manufacturers for low placement on PBM (Pharmacy Benefit Manager) formularies, along with average wholesale price (AWP), drug availability, and bulk discounts when choosing at which co-pay a brand name drug should be placed.Deceptive business practices
In February 2008, CVS settled a large civil lawsuit for deceptive business practices. The Kaiser Family Foundation reported:CVS has agreed to a $38.5million settlement in a multi-state civil deceptive-practices lawsuit against pharmacy benefit manager Caremark filed by 28 attorneys general, the ''Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...'' reports. The attorneys general, led by Lisa Madigan (D) of Illinois and Douglas Ganslar (D) of Maryland, allege that Caremark "engaged in deceptive business practices" by informing physicians that patients or health plans could save money if patients were switched to certain brand-name prescription drugs (Miller, ''Chicago Tribune'', 2/14).
However, the switch often saved patients and health plans only small amounts or increased their costs, while increasing Caremark's profits, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D) said (Levick, ''Hartford Courant The ''Hartford Courant'' is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is considered to be the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New Haven ...'', 2/15). Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett (R) said the Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM),Pharmacy Benefit Manager kept discounts and rebates that should have been passed on to employers and patients (Levy, '' AP/ San Francisco Chronicle'', 2/14). In addition, Caremark did not "adequately inform doctors" of the full financial effect of the switch and did not disclose that the switch would increase Caremark's profits, the lawsuit alleges (''Chicago Tribune'', 2/14).
...The settlement prohibits CVS from requesting prescription drug switches in certain cases, such as when the cost to the patient would be higher with the new prescription drug; when the original prescription drug's patent will expire within six months; and when patients were switched from a similar prescription drug within the previous two years (''Hartford Courant'', 2/15). Patients also have the ability to decline a switch from the prescribed treatment to the prescription offered by the pharmacy under the settlement, Madigan said (''Bloomberg News Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg Televi .../ The Philadelphia Inquirer'', 2/15).
Rhode Island Senate corruption case
In 2008, two former CVS executives, John R. "Jack" Kramer and Carlos Ortiz, were charged with 20 counts of mail fraud, bribery and conspiracy in relation to Operation Dollar Bill, a probe of corruption in the Rhode Island General Assembly. Kramer and Ortiz hired former state senator John Celona, who currently is serving years on corruption charges involving CVS and other companies, as a media consultant for $12,000 a year. Celona was known for walking out on a pharmacy choice vote in the state senate while on the CVS payroll. Despite originally claiming CVS never bought any favors in his own trial, he testified against Kramer and Ortiz as the prosecution's star witness. On May 31, 2008, Kramer and Ortiz were acquitted on all counts. One juror went on the record as saying "My perception living in Rhode Island all my life is, 'Yeah, this probably did go on', but I didn't see any proof beyond a reasonable doubt that CVS did this."Business practices under investigation
On May 4, 2010, CVS Caremark Corp. announced that its business practices were being investigated by a group of 24 states, along with the District of Columbia and Los Angeles County. At issue is the post-merger relationship between CVS and Caremark. In addition, the company had earlier acknowledged in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it had received a subpoena from the Office of Inspector General of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, requiring the company to provide information regarding the incentives the company provides to customers who transfer their prescriptions to CVS, including gift cards, goods and other incentives.FTC charges of privacy violations
On February 18, 2009, CVS Caremark agreed to settleFTC charges of deceptive pricing
On January 12, 2012, CVS Caremark paid $5million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it misrepresented the prices of certain Medicare Part D prescription drugs – including drugs used to treat breast cancer symptoms and epilepsy – at CVS and Walgreens pharmacies.DEA investigation into oxycodone diversion
According to the U.S. Justice Department, in 2011, CVS pharmacies in Sanford, Florida, ordered enough painkillers to supply a population eight times its size. Sanford has a population of 53,000 but the supply would support 400,000. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, in 2010, a single CVS pharmacy in Sanford ordered 1.8million Oxycodone pills, an average of 137,994 pills a month. Other pharmacy customers in Florida averaged 5,364 oxycodone pills a month. DEA investigators serving a warrant to a CVS pharmacy in Sanford on October 18, 2011, noted that "approximately every third car that came through the drive-thru lane had prescriptions for oxycodone or hydrocodone". According to the DEA, a pharmacist at that location stated to investigators that "her customers often requested certain brands of oxycodone using street slang", an indicator that the drugs were being diverted and not used for legitimate pain management. In response, CVS in a statement issued February 17 in response to opioid trafficking questions from '' USA Today'' said the company is committed to working with the DEA and had taken "significant actions to ensure appropriate dispensing of painkillers in Florida".Restatements
On November 15, 1999, CVS announced a restatement of its financial results for 1997, and 1998, following a Securities and Exchange Commission review of acquisition-related charges. On February 25, 2005, CVS said it was reducing its previously announced fourth-quarter earnings by $40.5million, to reflect the way it accounted for leased properties in its results.Co-responsibility for opioid crisis
In September 2016, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announced a $795,000 settlement where CVS agrees to check a state database before filling the prescription for addictiveCFI lawsuit for consumer fraud
In July 2018, theSee also
*References
External links
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cvs Caremark 2007 establishments in Rhode Island American companies established in 2007 Companies based in Providence County, Rhode Island Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Health care companies based in Rhode Island Health care companies established in 2007 Pharmacies of the United States Pharmacy benefit management companies based in the United States Retail companies established in 2007 Specialty drugs Woonsocket, Rhode Island