Using multiple touchpoints to manage patient health
When news of Rite Aid’s acquisition of the $5 billion-large PBM EnvisionRx broke on Feb. 11, the company’s shares closed 6.6% higher that day at $8.08. That’s because Wall Street knows a good deal when it sees one, and the acquisition of EnvisionRx is a good deal. Rite Aid’s new PBM will enhance the chain’s ability to provide a higher level of care to the patients and communities served by the Pennsylvania-based retailer.
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In fact, Rite Aid in the past year has acquired a number of health offerings that put the retail pharmacy operator in a position to succeed in what has become a fast-moving healthcare marketplace. Rite Aid’s healthcare offerings include RediClinics inside select stores and its innovative Rite Aid Health Alliance program, both of which help maintain Rite Aid’s continued focus on health-and-wellness initiatives, enhance value and choice for customers, expand Rite Aid’s role in healthcare delivery, address needs of growing market segments and leverage Rite Aid’s existing store base to deliver growth.
“Over the past few years, we have made tremendous progress in strengthening Rite Aid,” Standley told investors when sharing the news of the EnvisionRx deal. “We built a strong foundation from which we are expanding our presence as a retail healthcare company. [The] announcement of our acquisition of EnvisionRx is the logical next step in our plans to enhance our ability to serve patients and drive growth.”
Rite Aid’s transformation into a comprehensive healthcare solution is felt through its stores, too. When you pair Rite Aid’s ability to better manage the overall health of a patient with such propositions as its 1,500-strong Genuine Well Being store format — including the company’s just-opened store in Harrisburg, Pa., its first net-new store since 2010 — such out-of-the-box customer engagement initiatives as the Rite Aid Innovation Challenge and an enhanced beauty offering, you have a pretty compelling retail solution that’s going to attract the best kind of customers — sticky ones.
And then there’s the expansion of RediClinics within Rite Aid stores. Beginning in the Philadelphia and Washington, D.C./Baltimore markets, Rite Aid’s 24 RediClinics will be able to treat patients for more than 30 common medical conditions. Rite Aid will field some 35 additional RediClinics within Rite Aid stores by year-end by expanding RediClinic into the Seattle market.
Another initiative that is squarely positioning Rite Aid as a provider is its recent partnership with HealthSpot on its telehealth kiosks, which will be piloted in three Ohio markets. Visitors to the HealthSpot station will be able to connect with a network of board-certified medical professionals, such as Cleveland Clinic and other major health systems across Ohio, through the HealthSpot Network.
Rite Aid’s new beauty look builds on innovations featured in previous Wellness remodels — such as illuminated displays and a free-standing nail bar — by incorporating premium brands into an expanded product mix. Stores piloting this concept also have specially trained beauty advisors who can demonstrate how products are used and help customers learn about new brands, color-matching and other current trends. “We now have 50 Wellness stores with expanded beauty departments that feature a broader selection of prestige brands and specially trained beauty advisors,” Ken Martindale, Rite Aid president and COO, told investors during the company’s third-quarter conference call in late December.
And in February, Rite Aid launched in some markets Receutics Active Skin Repairs exclusive 10-piece collection of dermatologist-strength skin care products that helps address skin care concerns. The line is expected to be available companywide by January 2016.
Augmenting Rite Aid’s health and beauty proposition to its consumer base, Rite Aid in March announced its participation in a first for the U.S. retail industry — a coalition loyalty card program that in addition to Rite Aid includes such iconic brands as Macy’s, AT&T and Hulu. The new loyalty program, called Plenti, is additive to Rite Aid’s already-robust loyalty card program wellness+, which boasts more than 25 million active cardholders.