In late September Tricare announced that they would soon drop CVS, including locations inside Target, and add Walgreens to its network of 58,000 or so retail pharmacies nationwide starting in early December.
That was really startling news to many Tricare users. In 2011 Tricare dropped Walgreens amid huge controversy, but the decision to pick it up again while also dropping CVS means that although the network is expanding in one way, it's shrinking in another. All in all, it's a net loss of 1,000 pharmacies nationwide.
Here are three things to know about the Tricare pharmacy change.
We wanted to get a better picture of just how many people really, really like using CVS, so we ran a poll. And here are the results.
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Of the 1,000 or so people who took the poll, over 60 percent said they are really going to miss CVS, while just under 20 percent said they're thrilled to have Walgreens back.
The decision to make the switch has very little to do with convenience, and everything to do with contract negotiations between Tricare and these retailers. You can look for pharmacy changes like this every few years or so, although hopefully nothing major will come down the pike again any time soon. Life is already too complicated.
