CVS Health

CVS Health is a healthcare company based in the United States. Founded in 1963, it is one of the largest and most diversified healthcare companies in the country. CVS Health provides pharmacy services, retail stores, mail order services, long-term care services, speciality pharmacy services, and health care benefit plans. The company also owns several healthcare brands, including MinuteClinic, Caremark, and Aetna.

In addition to providing pharmacy services, CVS Health also offers a variety of other services. The company offers a variety of health and wellness products, including over-the-counter medications, vitamins, supplements, and health and beauty items. CVS Health also offers a variety of services such as vision care, hearing care, health screenings, and vaccinations. The company operates retail clinics in many of its stores, where customers can get care from a nurse practitioner or physician assistant. CVS Health also offers health coaching services to help customers make health-related decisions.

With nearly 10,000 retail pharmacies locations primarily in the United States. Adding a managed-care organization with about 22 million medical members gives the company a strong position in the insurance industry and should help CVS better control overall healthcare costs for its clients. Processing about 2 billion adjusted claims annually, and a sizable pharmacy operation

CVS Health is dedicated to improving the lives of its customers by providing quality healthcare and health-related services. The company is committed to providing access to affordable health care and is actively involved in improving the health of its customers. CVS Health has a number of programs and initiatives designed to promote healthy living and prevent chronic diseases. The company also works to reduce health disparities and eliminate health disparities in underserved communities.

1963: The Consumer Value Store started as a scrappy discount health and beauty outlet in Lowell, Mass.

1964: The CVS name was first used, by which time the founders were running a 17-store chain. The CVS name is used for the first time. The chain grows to 17 stores.

1967: Sales topped $260 million. CVS begins the operation of its first stores with pharmacy departments, opening locations in Warwick and Cumberland, Rhode Island.

1968:  Melville also acquired Foxwood, renamed Foxmoor, a 16-store apparel chain that catered to young women.

1969: CVS is sold to Melville Corporation.

1970: Melville, the fifth largest and most profitable United States shoemaker, operated 1,644 total retail outlets.

1971: Melville entered into a joint venture with C.F. Bally of Switzerland, contracting to sell the upscale Bally shoe line in the United States.

1973: Melville initiated a venture to market Thom McAn shoes in Japan.

1974: Despite the diversification, shoes still accounted for 71 percent of Melville's $765 million in sales. Ryan began his career with CVS/pharmacy as a pharmacy intern.

1975; Melville branched out further into nonshoe retailing when it bought Marshalls Inc., then a chain of 32 retail apparel stores.

1976: Total receipts from the firm's 3,300 outlets totalled $1.2 billion.

1977: He ran the corporation for nearly half a century and served as chairman of the board until the day he died at the age of 90. CVS acquires the 36-store New Jersey-based Mack Drug chain.

1978: Melville operated 3,812 stores and had sales of $1.75 billion. CVS/pharmacy finds success and differentiates itself from the competition by opening small health and beauty aid stores in enclosed shopping malls.

1980: Melville, with 48,000 employees and more than 4,500 stores, saw its 26th straight year of increased sales.

1981: Kay-Bee Toys chain is acquired by Melville.

1982: Linens 'n Things is added to the Melville roster.

1983: The firm began to phase out six of its seven shoe factories, eventually terminating about 2,000 jobs. Hemophilia patient home health care is launched.

1984: Senior Vice President of Marketing Harvey Rosenthal is named President and CEO of CVS. He succeeds Stan Goldstein, who is named Executive Vice President of Melville Corporation.

1986: CVS co-founder Stanley Goldstein is named president and COO of Melville Corporation.

1987: While amassing $5.9 billion in sales, Melville acquired 25 Heartland and Pharmacity drugstores and 36 Leather Loft stores.

1988: Melville bought athletic footwear retailer Finish Line as well as Bermans Specialty Stores. CVS/pharmacy celebrates its 25th anniversary, finishing the year with nearly 750 stores and sales of about $1.6 billion.

1989: Melville underwent some structural renovation. The year brought to a close a remarkably successful decade, one in which sales and earnings both increased more than threefold.

1990: Sales for the year totalled $8.68 billion. Peoples Drug Stores, a 490-store chain, is acquired by Melville and merged into the CVS chain during the early to mid-1990s.

1991: Further expansion came, when Melville acquired FootAction Inc., a Dallas-based chain of 128 athletic footwear stores, for $46 million. Caremark purchases Prescription Health Services (PHS).

1992: CVS exited from the California market when it sold all 85 of its stores in that state to American Drug Stores Inc., a unit of American Stores Company, for $60 million. The latter would represent the chain's first presence west of the Mississippi since selling its California stores.  Restructuring of Melville, involving the closure of as many as 800 stores, is launched.  Caremark spins off from Baxter.

1993: The Chess King and Accessory Lady chains are sold off.

1994: CVS was by far the largest of Melville's chains, with revenues of $4.3 billion, or 38 percent of Melville's overall revenues of $11.3 billion. CVS entered the burgeoning market for pharmacy benefit management services by forming PharmaCare Management Services to serve managed care and other organizations. In 1994 Thomas M. Ryan, a pharmacist was named CEO of CVS, which now had more than 1,350 locations. 1994 — CVS launches PharmaCare, a pharmacy benefit management company providing a wide range of services to employers and insurers.

1995: Caremark launches CarePatterns® disease management programs.

1996:  Following the restructuring of Melville Corporation, CVS Corporation becomes a standalone company trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the CVS ticker.

1997: CVS sold its remaining interest in Linens 'n Things during the year. CVS completes its acquisition of more than 2,500 stores from Revco, the largest acquisition in the history of the United States retail pharmacy industry.

1998: Ryan was named president and CEO of CVS, with Goldstein remaining chairman. For example, the company announced plans to open as many as 200 stores in New York City over a three-year period. CVS pays $1.48 billion for Arbor Drugs, Inc., a chain with more than 200 stores mainly in southeastern Michigan. CVS acquires 200 stores from Arbor Drugs of Michigan to bring its store total to 4,100 across 24 states.

1999: An end of another era occurred in April when Goldstein retired as chairman of CVS, 36 years after co-founding the first Consumer Value Store. The market for speciality pharmaceuticals, estimated at about $16 billion, was a particularly fast-growing segment of the drug industry, but it was highly fragmented, consisting mostly of mom-and-pop operations. 1999 —Caremark launches online prescription refills.

2001: In February CVS launched a chainwide loyalty card program called ExtraCare that would offer cardholders exclusive savings, mailings, and health information. CVS also announced plans to expand into Phoenix, Arizona; Miami Beach, Florida; and three new markets in Texas: Dallas, Houston, and Fort Worth.

2002: QuickMedx is renamed MinuteClinic in December CVS/pharmacy continues to grow, announcing plans to enter Texas with stores targeted for high-population-growth markets such as Dallas and Houston.

2003: With the addition of insurance coverage and other improvements, QuickMedx became MinuteClinic in December. Caremark Rx and AdvancePCS announce a strategic combination, creating a $23 billion company.

2004: In August, the company expanded with new clinics in Baltimore.

2005: CVS/pharmacy partners with MinuteClinic, announcing three clinics to open in CVS/pharmacy stores.

2007: Then came the $21 billion merger between CVS and Caremark, which gave birth to the country’s leading pharmacy benefits manager.

2008: CVS Caremark acquires 541 stores from Longs Drug in California, Hawaii, Nevada and Arizona, giving CVS/pharmacy immediate market leadership in Northern and Central California.

2009: MinuteClinic begins a series of affiliations with major health systems across the United States to enhance access to high-quality, affordable healthcare services.

2011: In March, Larry Merlo succeeds Tom Ryan as President and CEO of CVS Caremark.

2014: CVS Caremark purchases Coram, the speciality infusion services and enteral nutrition business unit of Apria Healthcare Group Inc. The company changed its corporate name to CVS Health.

2015: CVS Health completes its acquisition of Omnicare, the leading provider of pharmacy services to long-term care facilities.

2016: CVS Health announces Be The First, a five-year, $50 million initiative to help deliver the nation’s first tobacco-free generation.

2017: CVS Pharmacy continues to expand access to the opioid overdose-reversal medication naloxone in more than 40 states as part of the company’s multi-faceted approach to combating the nation’s growing prescription drug abuse epidemic.

2018: CVS Health fights back on high-cost drugs by launching the industry’s most comprehensive approach to saving patients money.

2020: Independent market research study comparing patient out-of-pocket costs for an emergency room visit versus a MinuteClinic® visit for the same presenting condition.

2021: As a leader on the frontlines, the company becomes America’s largest private provider of COVID-19 testing, administering more than 15 million tests across 4,800 sites (through January) with an emphasis on addressing racial health inequities in Black and Hispanic communities. In February, Karen S. Lynch succeeds Larry Merlo as President and Chief Executive Officer of CVS Health.

“Help people on their path to better health.” This mission statement is based on the company's value proposition that involves products used to improve or maintain target consumers' health (see VRIO/VRIN analysis and value chain analysis of CVS Health corporation).

“Creating unmatched human connections to transform the health care experience.”