CVS Expands Primary Care in Connecticut — What It Could Mean for Rhode Island

by Nancy Thomas

CVS Health is moving deeper into primary care across New England, and the latest expansion is happening now in Connecticut.

MinuteClinic, the medical clinic inside select CVS Pharmacy locations, and Hartford HealthCare announced a new collaboration to offer in-network adult primary care at all Connecticut MinuteClinic locations for many insurance plans accepted by Hartford HealthCare.

The arrangement applies to 20 MinuteClinic locations across Connecticut and is being promoted as a way to make primary care more convenient and easier to access. Patients will be able to use same-day or next-day appointments, evening and weekend hours, and a care model tied into Hartford HealthCare’s broader network of hospitals, specialists, diagnostic services, imaging and labs.

The two organizations say the model will use shared electronic health records to support communication between MinuteClinic providers and Hartford HealthCare clinicians. CVS says the primary care services include routine checkups, preventive care, chronic condition management, screenings, vaccines, treatment for minor illnesses, and referrals when more advanced care is needed.

The announcement comes as Connecticut, like much of the country, faces a shortage of primary care physicians. CVS says more than 65 percent of MinuteClinic locations nationally now offer adult primary care through affiliations with health systems and payers.

For Massachusetts

But a similar CVS proposal in Massachusetts is raising questions about cost, market power and who ultimately benefits.

On June 11, the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission is expected to release its final review of a proposed affiliation between CVS Health and Mass General Brigham. That arrangement would allow approximately 80 nurse practitioners at 37 CVS MinuteClinic locations in Massachusetts to become affiliated primary care clinicians within Mass General Brigham’s contracting network and accountable care organization.

The proposal is aimed at the same problem: access. Massachusetts health officials have estimated that hundreds of thousands of adults do not have a regular source of primary care. CVS and Mass General Brigham say the model could eventually serve tens of thousands of adult patients through MinuteClinic-based primary care.

The concern is whether expanded access would also mean higher costs.

In its preliminary review, the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission estimated that the CVS-Mass General Brigham affiliation could increase commercial health care spending by more than $40 million annually by the third year. CVS and Mass General Brigham have disputed that estimate and said the increase would be lower.

A key issue is reimbursement. If MinuteClinic visits are billed through Mass General Brigham’s commercial contracts, the same type of care could cost more than it does today. The arrangement could also send more referrals into Mass General Brigham’s system for laboratory testing, imaging, specialty care and hospital-based services.

That is where Rhode Island comes in.

Rhode Island’s primary care problem is already being felt by patients who cannot find a doctor accepting new patients, who wait months for appointments, or who lost their primary care home when practices closed or reduced services.

Anchor Medical Associates became the clearest recent example. The practice announced in 2025 that it would close, leaving roughly 25,000 patients looking for new primary care doctors and pediatricians. The Rhode Island Medical Society has said at least 29,500 Rhode Islanders lost access to primary care in less than one year because of practice closures or reductions.

That is the local backdrop for the CVS expansion unfolding around Rhode Island.

CVS is not an outside player. The company is headquartered in Woonsocket and is already a major force in pharmacy, insurance, pharmacy benefits, retail clinics, home-based evaluations and primary care.

CVS Health owns Oak Street Health, a primary care company focused largely on older adults and Medicare patients. CVS completed its acquisition of Oak Street Health in 2023 in a deal valued at approximately $10.6 billion.

Oak Street Health already lists four Rhode Island locations: South Providence at 712 Broad Street, with seven providers; Branch Avenue in Providence at 650 Branch Avenue, Suite 6, with eight providers; Warwick at 300 Quaker Lane, Suite C2-4, with five providers; and Woonsocket at 2000 Diamond Hill Road, with six providers. That gives CVS-owned Oak Street a visible primary care footprint in Rhode Island before any broader MinuteClinic primary care expansion is announced here.

That means CVS is already in Rhode Island primary care, not merely approaching it.

There is also a Rhode Island connection in Oak Street’s earlier history. Former BCBSRI president and CEO Kim Keck served on Oak Street’s board before CVS acquired the company. Oak Street’s major pre-CVS investors included private equity and growth investment firms, along with Humana.

Johnston leads with lab work opp

CVS’s health care footprint in Rhode Island also includes other pieces of the retail-health model. Quest Diagnostics operates a patient service center inside the CVS Pharmacy at 26 Putnam Pike in Johnston, giving patients access to lab services inside a pharmacy location – said to be the first such store/lab opportunity in Rhode Island, and perhaps in the US.

Taken together, the pieces are significant: CVS owns Oak Street Health, operates MinuteClinic, owns Aetna, runs CVS Caremark, acquired Signify Health, and is involved in pharmacy-based lab access through partnerships such as Quest. More than a pharmacy chain – CVS is a growing part of the health care delivery system.

For Rhode Island, the potential benefit is clear. CVS and its related health care businesses could help create more access points, longer hours, faster appointments, chronic disease management, screenings, vaccines, medication support and lab access. Much of what it already does in terms of many vaccines in addition to the original flu shot and later COVID shot location – and patient education.

Those are meaningful advantages in a state where primary care capacity is under serious strain.

But Massachusetts offers the warning. If expanded access is tied to higher-priced hospital contracts, Rhode Island could end up with more convenient care that also costs more. If retail-based primary care focuses mainly on commercially insured patients or Medicare patients, Medicaid patients and lower-income residents could still be left behind. If referrals are steered into one health system’s network, patient choice and overall spending could become larger concerns.

The question for Rhode Island is not whether CVS can help fill part of the primary care gap. It probably can.

The better question is under what rules.

Rhode Island regulators and policymakers should be watching the Connecticut rollout and the Massachusetts decision closely. Any expanded CVS primary care model here should raise basic questions: Will it accept Medicaid? Will it preserve pediatric access? Will prices be transparent? Will patients be referred based on need rather than network advantage? Will it reach people who currently have no primary care provider?

The primary care shortage pushes patients into more expensive settings – and settings not designed to handle the flux. Without timely access to a primary care doctor, routine problems, infections, medication issues and chronic conditions often end up at urgent care centers or hospital emergency departments — places designed for episodic or emergency treatment, not ongoing prevention and disease management.

CVS may be building one of the most convenient answers to the primary care shortage. But Rhode Island should make sure convenience does not become another name for higher-cost care, even as it addresses what the costs may be for tens of thousands going without healthcare at all.