Rebecca Pifer@RebeccaMPifer July 22, 2020
Dive
Brief:
·
Walmart is expanding its nascent health superstore network into
Florida in the first half of next year, the retail giant announced Wednesday.
·
The company is still in the early stages of planning, but
currently operates four large clinics, which include doctors and nurse
practitioners, in the Georgia towns of Dallas, Calhoun and Loganville, and
one in Springdale, Arkansas, that opened late June.
·
Walmart also plans to open additional health clinics in Georgia
this year, and is eyeing an expansion into Chicago. But moving
into Florida, with a first location planned for the Jacksonville area,
represents an investment of "millions of dollars," per a blog post on the
news. Walmart did not respond to requests for a more specific number by time of
publication.
Dive
Insight:
Florida has the second
highest number of Walmart stores in the country, after Texas, and is where the
Arkansas-based retail giant launched its $4 generic prescription program more
than a decade ago. The state also has a large population of elderly patients
with chronic health needs at high risk for COVID-19, making it ripe for players
looking to provide low-cost preventive care.
The Florida store, like
its predecessors, will include a range of primary and urgent care options,
including therapy and behavioral health, run by a team of medical professions
including physicians, nurse practitioners and dentists. It will have on-site lab,
X-ray and diagnostic services and host educational and community events
centered around wellness.
Walmart, which brought in
more than $514 billion in revenue last year, is too early in planning to
announce prices at the Florida store, but told Healthcare Dive it was working
with healthcare consultants to determine the prices of different services and
that they're intended to be affordable.
The first Walmart Health
Center, which opened September 2019 in Dallas, Georgia, charges $40 for a
primary care visit for adults, $50 for an adult dental checkup and cleaning and
$45 for an eye appointment, while therapy services are $1 per minute.
Health-focused retail
behemoths like Walmart, Walgreens and CVS Health, which operates more directly
in the industry through its payer and pharmacy benefit management business,
have been building out their basic care footprints over the past few years.
Retail clinics can yield additional script-writing and drive
front-of-store sales for their owners, and early pilots have generally focused
on traditionally underserved areas and states with poor health outcomes, such
as Texas, Florida, Arizona and Georgia.
Earlier this month,
Walgreens became the first national pharmacy chain to work toward building out
a primary care infrastructure in its stores. The Illinois-based company announced a $1 million investment in
the full-service doctors' offices through a partnership with VillageMD, a
medical services provider.
Walgreens plans to open
500 to 700 stores over the next five years.
For its part, CVS plans
to have a chain of 1,500 wellness-focused HealthHUB locations by the end of
2021 as part of its enterprise growth strategy, though CEO Larry Merlo has said the stores
aim to be a complement to physicians, and not replace them.
Walmart, which already
runs 19 primary care clinics with
a more limited range of services than its Health Centers, has been elbowing
further into the traditional health space during the COVID-19 pandemic,
confirming earlier this month it planned to offer health insurance policies directly
to consumers. And in June, the retailer acquired venture capital-backed tech
startup CareZone, which develops apps to help people
manage medications and chronic illnesses, in a deal pegged at $200 million.
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