Chicago-based primary care company VillageMD is celebrating the opening Nov. 20 of its first primary care clinic at a Walgreens store in Houston, the company announced on Twitter.
The VillageMD primary care clinic, called Village Medical at Walgreens, is the first of five sites to open in Houston. Four more clinics are slated to open by the end of the year. The Village Medical clinics are located next to Walgreens stores and offer services including annual preventive care, women's health services, vaccinations, diagnostic testing, smoking cessation, chronic care management and some specialty care. The clinics offer same-day, walk-in appointments, as well as house calls and virtual visits. The clinics are staffed by primary care physicians, nurses, pharmacists and social workers.
The Village Medical at Walgreens opening comes just weeks after Walgreens announced plans in October to shutter nearly 160 in-store health clinics. The decision to close these sites came after profits dipped 55 percent in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019. The pharmacy giant said it planned to shift its strategy for walk-in clinics, which were barely breaking even, to focus more on chronic care management than treating minor illnesses. As part of this plan, Walgreens kept roughly 220 clinics run by local health systems open and said it will continue to look to outside partners to provide in-store medical services.
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