The acquisitions keep coming. In May, it paid $12.7 billion to acquire Omnicare, which distributes prescription drugs to nursing homes and assisted-living operations. Just weeks later, CVS announced it would buy Target’s pharmacy and clinic businesses for $1.9 billion and left open the possibility of pursuing further deals. Once the Target deal closes, CVS will operate about 9,600 retail stores, or about one out of seven retail pharmacies, according to Pembroke Consulting. Last year, the company changed its name from CVS Caremark to CVS Health.

The growth of CVS comes at a time when the way Americans get access to and pay for health care is evolving quickly. Surveys show that many of the estimated 30 million people who gained insurance coverage last year under health care reform do not have a primary health care physician or do not use one. Many, too, opted for high-deductible health plans and are expected to become picky with the dollars they spend, and less tolerant of the opaque pricing that is still the industry’s norm. And consumers in general are starting to demand more convenient, on-demand access to health care, closer to home.

In that fast-changing world, CVS’s strategy is to be a one-stop shop for health care.

“Say you have diabetes, and you go into a pharmacy to get your insulin, how great is it if, in the same aisle, there’s a cookbook for people with diabetes?” said Ceci Connolly, managing director of PwC’s Health Research Institute. “And maybe there’s some foods that are already approved for you, and a place to check your feet, and a clinician to check your eyes,” she said.

“Consumers are saying: I want all of that at a place near my house that’s open on Saturdays, when it’s convenient for me. I want that place to post prices. It’s in CVS’s interest to pull in more and more pieces of that puzzle.”

A typical CVS clinic staffed by nurse practitioners sees 35 to 40 patients a day; those patients pay $79 to $99 for minor illnesses and injuries, and most insurance plans are accepted. Analysts estimate each clinic typically brings in $500,000 a year, representing just a fraction of CVS’s revenue. Still, the clinics are an important part of the company’s health care proposition.

Other retailers are also getting into the business. The number of retail clinic sites grew to 1,800 locations nationwide in 2014 from 200 in 2006, though they still represent just 2 percent of primary care encounters in the United States, according to a report published this year by Manatt Health, a health advisory practice, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. But CVS is by far the leader. Walmart, which charges just $40 a visit, has fewer than 100 clinics, compared with the more than 900 in CVS’s portfolio. Walgreens, the second-largest, has half as many clinics as CVS. And CVS plans to add more, reaching 1,500 by 2017, the company has said.