CVS Health (CVS 1.49%) has a retail brand most people in the United States are familiar with, but the best investors know that the company is far more than a neighborhood pharmacy chain.
In particular, there are three things that the most in-the-know investors are aware of with regard to this healthcare giant that average investors (and most of its customers) probably haven't appreciated in full.
1. CVS is angling for a hearty slice of the market for primary care services
CVS Health's retail pharmacy footprint includes more than 9,000 stores, and more than 85% of people in the U.S. live within 10 miles of one of them. With that kind of footprint, it has excellent access to several gargantuan markets, ranging from prescription filling services to consumer healthcare products. And over the last few years, the company began setting its sights on a market that could potentially make those two markets look minuscule: primary care. This move could be a massive driver of earnings for CVS over the next decade and beyond.
Via the MinuteClinic stations it houses within its pharmacies, CVS already delivers certain primary care services, and it registered more than 5.5 million visits to those mini-clinics in 2022. It's hard to overstate how strong the company's positioning is on that front. Between its digital care platform, its pharmacy platform, and its health insurance platform, it already has a huge amount of data on consumers' health. When paired with the widespread accessibility of its pharmacies, it can offer real value to those who decide to use its primary care services. Eventually, that'll attract more customers, especially if it can leverage its information to deliver services at lower costs than people might be able to find elsewhere.
For now, it is just finding its footing in the segment -- its healthcare services only brought in $920 million in the first quarter, up 28.5% year over year. That's not much on the scale of its total revenue of $322.4 billion in 2022. But if it can continue that relatively quick pace of growth, soon enough, this segment could represent a more significant portion of the company's top line.
2. CVS also competes in the market for health insurance
CVS Health offers health insurance via its Aetna subsidiary, which is something that smart investors know and probably are rather excited about. In the first quarter, its health insurance policies brought in revenue of more than $24.3 billion in premiums alone while only paying out $20.6 billion in benefits. And premium revenue rose by 12.6% year over year.
Similarly to its foray into providing healthcare, its insurance business is deeply integrated within its product ecosystem, and it is likely to continue to grow. By tracking customers' purchasing habits at CVS locations and understanding their medical needs via providing primary care and pharmacy services, it can probably insure people quite profitably at scale. And while it might struggle to steal market share from other major insurers, that doesn't necessarily matter much. As long as it keeps expanding a little bit every quarter, it'll pick up a long tail of revenue from premium payments, which is positive for its future, to say the least.
3. CVS just changed how it reports its different revenue segments
CVS Health's pivot from being primarily a pharmacy chain to being a general consumer healthcare company isn't over. But in Q1, management made a big change that signifies the end of the beginning phase of the pivot. It now reports its revenue segments differently than before.
Now, it has three segments: healthcare benefits, health services, and pharmacy and consumer wellness. The benefits segment includes its healthcare, Aetna, and dental insurance offerings, as well as its nascent behavioral health products. In contrast, "health services" constitutes its primary care services and pharmacy benefit management plans, while the pharmacy segment bundles its traditional prescription-filling activities with its sales of consumer health goods, cosmetics, and other retail products.
The reporting changes don't alter anything concrete on their own. But, as wise investors recognize, CVS' appeal to shareholders is changing as it enters new lines of business, and the rebranding of its segments helps to highlight its areas of strength more effectively than the older scheme.
