It's not just sore throats and flu shots anymore. Walgreens today became the first retail store chain to expand its health care services to include diagnosing and treating patients for chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes and high cholesterol. The move is the retail industry's boldest push yet into an area long controlled by physicians, and comes amid continuing concerns about health care costs and a potential shortage of primary care doctors. "Those two words, diagnosis and treatment, are big words. They show [Walgreens] is coming out of the closet and saying we really are going to do primary care now," said Tom Charland, chief executive officer of Merchant Medicine, a health care consulting firm.
