CVS Health (NYSE:CVS), founded in 1963 by Stanley Goldstein, Sidney Goldstein and Ralph Hoagland, began as Melville, a health and beauty aid store chain in Lowell, Massachusetts.
In 1996, CVS Corporation spun off from Melville and became a standalone company trading as CVS on the New York Stock Exchange. Today, CVS Health Corporation is a leading American healthcare company that owns CVS Pharmacy, CVS Caremark and Aetna.
CVS Health Corp offers its customers a range of health solutions. It operates through three main segments: healthcare benefits, pharmacy services and retail. The Health Care Benefits segment provides various traditional, voluntary and consumer-directed health insurance products to different groups, including individuals, employer groups, college students, health care providers and governmental units.
The pharmacy services segment offers a range of pharmacy benefit management solutions, including plan design and administration, clinical, formulary management, retail pharmacy network management, specialty pharmacy and infusion and medical spend management services. This segment serves insurance companies, prescription drug plans, health plans, unions, employers, Medicaid-managed care plans and individuals.
The retail segment sells prescription and over-the-counter drugs, personal care products and consumer health and beauty products. It also provides health care services through MinuteClinic walk-in medical clinics. It distributes prescription drugs while offering pharmacy consulting and other ancillary services to care facilities and different care settings. Additionally, it operates specialty mail-order, retail specialty pharmacy stores, compounding pharmacies and branches for infusion and enteral nutrition services.
CVS Health Corporation is one of the largest healthcare providers in the United States. In 2021, it ranked fourth on the Fortune 500 list and seventh on the Fortune Global 500 list.
The company faced criticism in November 2021 when a federal jury found that CVS, Walgreens and Walmart "had substantially contributed to" the opioid crisis. Despite this setback, CVS Health Corp remains dedicated to its broader healthcare commitment, as reflected by its decision to change its corporate name to CVS Health in September 2014. In February 2020, CVS Health announced changes to its board of directors, reducing the size from 16 to 13 directors.
In December 2017, CVS Health Corp agreed to acquire Aetna for $69 billion, completing the acquisition in November 2018. The purchase of Aetna, a leading health insurance company, allowed CVS Health Corp to expand its services to a broader range of customers.
CVS Health Corp's success is also due to its subsidiary, Caremark, established in 1979 by James M. Sweeney as Home Health Care of America (HHCA), which later changed its name to Caremark in 1985. In 1996, Caremark merged with MedPartners/Mullikin Inc., the combined company called MedPartners Inc. In 1998, MedPartners changed its name to Caremark Rx. Caremark was fined $160 million in 1991 for a "four-year-long federal mail-fraud and kickback" scheme in which it "paid doctors to steer patients to its intravenous drug service."
On November 18, 2021, CVS Health announced plans to close 900 stores over the next three years, with closing beginning in the spring of 2022. The company's decision to close stores could result from increased competition in the healthcare industry, changing consumer behavior and the COVID-19 pandemic. The company is confident in its ability to continue to provide quality healthcare services to customers.
