Walmart is making a move into delivering primary care, according to an article on the Forbes website. It has opened a half-dozen clinics across South Carolina and Texas, and plans to launch six more before the end of the year.
The clinics will be staffed by nurse practitioners, in a partnership with QuadMed.
Walmart already has more than 100 retail clinics. Unlike those clinics, these new primary care clinics are fully owned by the company and branded as one-stop shops for primary care.
They will be open longer and later than competitors: 12 hours per day during the week and another more than eight hours per day on weekends.
Walmart says their clinics will be a low-cost alternative to traditional options: Walk-in visits will cost $40.
For the hundreds of thousands of Walmart employees covered by the company health plan the price is $4.
Walmart’s move is part of the broader trend of retailers, big-box stores, and other non-traditional competitors charging into health care delivery, the article said.
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