Best Buy says health strategy ‘remains viable’

MINNEAPOLIS – Best Buy remains committed to its health business, but parts of it are taking longer to scale than expected, company execs say. 

Best Buy initiated a major restructuring effort within its health business in the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, incurring $109 million in restructuring charges.  

“The strategy of the health business is enabling care at home for everyone,” said CEO Corie Barry, on a recent call to discuss the company’s earnings. “As you think about the business – we have active aging or our Lively business or even just some of the care-at-home business – these remain very viable business models for the future.” 

Best Buy’s early moves into health care include its 2018 acquisition of Great Call, a provider of connected health and personal emergency response services to the aging population, and its 2021 acquisition of Current Health, a health care technology platform. 

That was followed by several partnerships with leading health systems such as Mass General Brigham, Geisinger and Atrium Health to offer in-home care and remote monitoring to patients with chronic health conditions.  

But those partnerships have been slower to scale, say execs, amid uncertainty about how long hospital-at-home waivers will remain in place. First begun by CMS in November 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the waivers have been extended several times, most recently through September 2025. 

“The adoption of hospital-at-home solutions at scale (is) slower because, partially, the health-at-home waiver has been caught up in a lot of the administration's budgeting conversations, and it's been inconsistent in terms of how long that waiver will be in place,” said Barry. 

Growth has also been slowed by financial struggles for other health care providers over the past few years, said Barry. 

“I think all of us would agree, we absolutely see a future where more of your health care is taken into your own hands using technology and technology devices,” she said. “You can already see it across our assortment and across how people are choosing to take care of their own health, and we will continue to lean into that part of the strategy.”