Walmart Shapes Its Own Primary Care, Unbundling Strategy

Walmart is establishing its own version of a primary care, unbundling healthcare strategy (Walmart Care Clinics) that is both similar and different to CVS-Aetna. The details were discussed in a recent article (see:Walmart Health: A Deep Dive into the $WMT Corporate Strategy in Health Care)...[R]eports [have emerged] that Walmart is in merger talks withHumana, a health insurer with a $37B market cap, and looking to buyPillPack, an online pharmacy, for just under $1B [to] make Walmart look more like an integrated health care delivery system with every passing day. On top of Walmart ’s existing health care offerings, these two acquisitions would functionally give Walmart the following:Risk-aligned health insurance plans that incentivize the expansion of low-cost retail primary care clinics in underserved geographies.A distribution footprint that places outpatient primary care clinics within 15 minutes of 90% of the US population.A seamless online pharmacy with home medication delivery funneling into a robust e-commerce offering.Here are two reasons why outpatient primary care is ready to be unbundled from traditional health care delivery systems, i.e. hospitals, for two reasons: (see:Walmart Health: A Deep Dive into the $WMT Corporate Strategy in Health Care):Most patients that visit primary care physicians don ’t need the resources of an expensive medical center on-hand for each visit, and would be better served by an experience that emphasized price, convenience, and...
Source: Lab Soft News - Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Cost of Healthcare Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Innovations Healthcare Insurance Medical Consumerism Pharmaceutical Industry Public Health Source Type: blogs