Some local Rite Aid pharmacies are offering $45 online consultations with doctors

By Chris Reidy, Globe Staff

Rite Aid, a national pharmacy chain headquartered in Pennsylvania, said it will offer $45 phone or video consultations with doctors at 20 of its stores in the Boston area, including stores in Braintree, Cambridge, Everett, Medford, South Boston, and Woburn.

Photo taken from a Rite Aid website.

Working with the Boston telehealth company American Well, Rite Aid said in a press release that it is bringing online doctor visits with video, text, chat, and talk to some of its local Rite Aid pharmacies. Conversations with nurses are complimentary, and a 10-minute consultation with a doctor is $45, the chain said. The service is called NowClinic Online Care.

According to Rite Aid, this is the first time a national pharmacy chain is offering widescale access to doctors via new computer technology in multiple states.

With more than 4,600 stores around the country, including 153 in Massachusetts, Rite Aid said it has been testing its NowClinic Online Care program in nine of its locations in the Detroit market since 2011.

Now the company said it is rolling out the NowClinic Online Care program to 58 additional stores in the Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh markets.

Customers can also access NowClinic Online Care services 24/7 by visiting www.myNowClinic.com/RiteAid, which is especially convenient when customers are not able to visit a doctor’s office or for when their doctor’s office or their local Rite Aid with NowClinic available are not open, the company said.