Report: Walgreens to expand work-site health clinics

New York City Walgreen Co. may open "several thousand" work-site health clinics in upcoming years to take advantage of the estimated $7.3 billion market for employer-provided care, according to Bloomberg.com.

Walgreens currently has some 370 employer-sponsored workplace clinics, which provide primary-care physicians, nurse practitioners, nutritionists and other services. The chain will slow retail store expansion to focus in part on the work-site healthcare initiative, Peter Hotz, president of Walgreen's Take Care Employer Solutions Group, said yesterday in a telephone interview, the report said.

"We are absolutely looking at this as a business unit that's going to be sizeable, that's going to be accretive, that's going to be tangible," Hotz said.

Walgreen expects to break out sales and profit from the Take Care unit in financial statements within the next 18 months, Hotz said in the report. The chain receives management fees that are on average 30% more than staffing costs, he said.

Walgreens currently operates work-site health clinics for such companies as Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Qualcomm and Walt Disney Co.

Walgreens is the largest provider of workplace health clinics, according to Michael Ratcliffe, a consultant who studies job-site clinics for Cambridge, Mass.-based Fuld & Co.