Summary Of Hearing Amazon's Footsteps The Health Care Industry Ladders

When it comes down to it, CVS Health stores faces so many challenges. They solely exist for the purposes of promoting good health in the community, because they believe it is everything. The company is aware that they must respond to an aging population and to do, they must first respond to every American, the ones that are insured and those individuals uninsured (CVS Health, 1999-2016). The idea behind the company is that the more accessible and affordable the services and products in the store are whether it be the company’s alternate brand or a name brand product sold in the store, the better the

Placed within an industry being pressured by reimbursement rates, plagued by market saturation, and in constant fear of government legislation, Walgreens is trying to pursue new avenues to promote company growth. In order to promote market share growth in New York, Walgreens acquired the drugstore chain Duane Reade in 2010 (WAG to Acquire NY Institution Duane Reade, 2010). Walgreens also recently expanded their online presence in May of 2011 with the acquisition of drugstore.com (Walgreens Co.). While Walgreens also focuses on traditional organic store growth, these actions exemplify their large focus on promoting company growth through new avenues.

the benefits of a multichannel strategy” (p. 13). Walgreen’s image is about creating value and making shopping either for consumer goods or prescription drugs more convenient.

Walgreens has attempted to build satisfaction, value, and loyalty for their customers by remembering that loyal customers are at the heart of their business, and thus rely on a customer-on-top business model. To do this, Walgreens has learned the talent of listening and responding to their customers in the following ways: (1) to respond to the busy lives of their customers, Walgreens allowed them to fill prescriptions at different stores and offered them the drive-thru pharmacy; (2) customers who spoke other languages complained about the labels, and Walgreens responded by printing labels in more than 10 different languages; and (3) when customers with eyesight problems could not read the labels, Walgreens offered printed labels with larger font sizes so that customers could more easily read the bigger text (Berenbaum, n.d., para. 19).

"In the past two decades or so, health care has been commercialized as never before, and professionalism in medicine seems to be giving way to entrepreneurialism," commented Arnold S. Relman, professor of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School (Wekesser 66). This statement may have a great deal of bearing on reality. The tangled knot of insurers, physicians, drug companies, and hospitals that we call our health system are not as unselfish and focused on the patients' needs as people would like to think. Pharmaceutical companies are particularly ruthless, many of them spending millions of dollars per year to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs and to convince consumers that their specific brand of drug is needed in

The Affordable Care Act, or, “Obamacare” as it has been dubbed by the media and general public was approved on June 8, 2012 when the “The Supreme Court of the United States upheld most provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by a 5-4 vote” (James, "Affordable Care Act and Pharmacy: Big Changes Ahead?"). This vote and approval has completely reshaped the landscape of the healthcare field, not only from a provider’s aspect, but from a consumer’s aspect as well. The need for healthcare reform was made apparent due to the growing

The second significant change for Walgreens in recent history is the purchase of Drugstore.com, a leading online retail pharmacy, in 2011 for the sum of $409 million. In addition, subsidiary companies of Drugstore.com were also purchased (Beauty.com, SkinStore.com, and VisionDirect.com). 4 Analysts have debated whether the recent acquisition should remain as a stand alone business or whether it should be integrated into the Walgreens business. Proponents of the integration argue that a consistent brand experience which extends from physical stores into the digital web will increase consumer loyalty. Proponents of leaving the online venture as a stand alone entity argue that integration of Drugstore.com into Walgreen’s will open up debate on pricing may diminish the consumer loyalty from Drugstore.com, thus negating the potential increase in sales. Walgreens has made it clear that it intends to leave the newly acquired online businesses as stand alone entities. 5

Finally, in a February 2012 proposed regulation, CMS proposed that state Medicaid agencies reimburse pharmacies for retail drugs based on actual acquisition cost. CMS recognized, however, that states may not be able to determine the actual price paid by a pharmacy for a drug billed to Medicaid, so it suggested that states survey pharmacies or rely on other data to calculate an average acquisition cost for drugs purchased and billed by retail community pharmacies. The article reviewed the association between benefit caps, prescription drug use, and the costs associated. It also detailed drug cost sharing, additional medical costs, and specific health outcomes. Using observational data, the studies analyzed the changes and did a cost comparison of outcomes at two points of time, before and after the pharmaceutical benefits changed. The article detailed the impact of pharmaceutical drugs was often difficult to analyze because some data analyzed utilization while others analyzed actual pharmaceutical spending. The data surrounding utilization compared as many as five factors such proportion

Everybody reaches out of pocket to pay for different prescription drugs. Parents for children, elderly for health conditions, and pet owners for pets, but there is one extensive concern; the price and outcomes. Transiently, it may be common for someone to come out of pocket for some prescriptions, but when people draw out of pocket every time just to pick up a prescription drug, it becomes annoying and upsetting. Pharmaceutical companies like CVS and Walgreens collect over $1,000,000 dollars just from gouging people for medications. According to David Belk (M.D.), Pharmacies buy medication in mass from pharmaceutical corporations and suppliers, then sell for a profit. What everyone is trying to ask the companies though is why. Why would a top-producing company like CVS or Walgreens sell expensive medications to a group of people like the elderly for profit?

As Congress considers potential options to reform Medicaid, it is important to keep in mind patient access to prescription drugs and other healthcare services. Retail community pharmacies believe that Medicaid prescription drug benefit reform efforts should be focused on maintaining a Medicaid prescription drug benefit, maintaining patient access to adequate provider networks, fair and appropriate cost-based provider payments, and facilitating patient access to pharmacist-provided health care services.

CVS's retail pharmacy operations are functioning poorly and dissatisfying customers. Many customers are defecting as a result. A pharmacy service improvement team has documented the current prescription fulfillment process, its exception rates, and the problems generated by exceptions. The company must now decide how to change this process, and what information system changes to make in support of the redesigned process.

Walgreen’s drugstore was located in Barrett’s Hotel at Cottage Grove and Bowen Ave on Chicago’s Southside. The neighborhood was prospering but Walgreen’s wasn’t. Mr. Walgreen decided to add brighter lights, expand the aisles (since the other pharmacies were dull and cramped), and add variety like pots and pans (unheard of in a drugstore. The quality of Walgreen’s pharmaceutical compounds met the very highest standards of purity and freshness. Efficiency was increased. But the most dramatic change Mr. Walgreen instituted was a lever of service and personal attention unequaled by virtually any other pharmacy in Chicago. And this was exemplified by Walgreen’s famous “Two Minute Drill” (Walgreen, n.d., p. 3).

Due to the growing competition and diminishing market share, companies are opting for different strategies to achieve their survival objectives as well as growth. Companies are thus executing grand strategies to provide their businesses with a clear direction for its strategic actions. These strategies, therefore, aim at both short term and long term sustainability and growth, and they include innovation, market development, product development, and concentration.

Current Industry. The retail drug industry’s 2010 combined annual revenue was $277 billion, according to the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (Drug Store Industry…, 2011, par. 4).The big players in this industry are CVS Caremark, Corp. Walgreen Co., and Rite-Aid, Corp with Wal-Mart and Target developing more of a presence in recent years. According to the article, the drug store industry is very concentrated with the 50 largest companies generating about 70 percent of the industries revenue (Drug Store Industry…, 2011, par. 4). The industry had grown substantially in the last 50 years and will continue to innovate and develop well into the near future.

AMERICAN WELL NEW MARKET OPPORTUNITIES The various market opportunities for American well are listed as per the priority  Online Kiosk: The patients can enter their preliminary information on the Hospitals Kiosks instead of waiting idle. The information that shared can be useful to the doctors on narrowing down the symptoms and treatment. There by increasing the efficiency of the physician and better treatment for patients  International Expansion: American well can expand the concept of E care over the horizon there by providing healthcare facilities to remote destinations and catering to international markets. Since healthcare industry is most prominent throughout the world Expanding would better investments  Online Pharmacy: The digitalizing pharmacy is trivial as many will have questions on how to take medicines its side effects due to the social stigma associated most of them just keep quiet to take the prescribed medicine and then come