Target expands medical clinic business

Target is expanding its presence in the medical clinic business with eight new clinics.

"Target Corp. was one of the first retailers to experiment with putting a medical clinic in its stores. But while chains such as CVS and Walgreen's expanded rapidly into so-called retail medicine, Target is still tiptoeing into the field," The Star Tribune reports. "Last week, the Minneapolis-based retailer opened eight new Target Clinics -- five in Chicago and three in Palm Beach, Fla. -- marking its biggest expansion in retail medicine since 2007. Until now, the company has operated 28 clinics in just two states: Minnesota and Maryland."

Currently, there are 1,190 retail clinics in the U.S., according to Merchant Medicine. "The clinics can be found in grocery stores, hospitals, drugstores and mass merchandisers. … With health care reform on the horizon, Target and the industry's two biggest players, CVS/Caremark's MinuteClinic and Walgreens' Take Care Clinics, are getting in position to gain market share" (Crosby, 9/11).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.