Brad Fluegel, Walgreens, on increasing health equity with retailers entering healthcare

In this episode, we sat down with Brad Fluegel, lecturer at the Wharton School’s Health Care Management program and former Senior Vice President and Chief Healthcare Commercial Market Development Officer for Walgreens. Before that, he was the Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy and External Affairs Officer for Wellpoint, now Anthem, and Senior Vice President of National Accounts and Vice President of Enterprise Strategy at Aetna. What we discussed: Consumer behavior shifting to online purchasing combined with excess retail space is driving retailers such as Walmart and CVS to explore opportunities to leverage consumer familiarity with their brands to expand their presence in the growing healthcare industry. Retailers, providers, and payers are exploring the tradeoffs of different models for expanding into healthcare, from partnering to investing to build out independent outpatient health centers. Collaboration amongst payers, providers, and retailers may drive cost and care benefits for consumers while increasing health equity amongst disadvantaged populations. Near-term policy changes on allowing lower level healthcare practitioners to administer care currently dispensed by doctors as well as insurers considering maintaining pay parity for in-person and remote services should persist after COVID.