Walmart Health's first "super center for basic healthcare services" opened Sept. 13, 2019 in Dallas, ... [+]
Walmart disclosed plans Wednesday to open more “Walmart Health” centers in the lucrative Florida market beginning next year as the retail giant looks to expand low cost healthcare services to tens of thousands of its customers.
Like the handful of healthcare services “super centers” Walmart has opened in the last year in Arkansas and Georgia, the Florida facilities will feature an array of primary medical services, dental care, and behavioral health services as part of a new model being replicated into other markets.
It’s a huge market opportunity for Walmart, which is already critical for the global retail giant. Florida is home to the second highest number of Walmart stores in the country, serving customers at more than 380 retail stores and employing more than 106,000 people, Walmart said.
More details will be disclosed later on specific locations, but the Jacksonville market will be the first in the state to see a Walmart Health center, the company said. A Walmart spokeswoman said the new centers “will build on the features and services” of the three facilities in Georgia and fourth in Arkansas “as well as future locations in Illinois,” that Walmart CEO Doug McMillon mentioned in Chicago a month ago.
Executives said the new Florida centers build on the first 10,000 square foot facility that opened last fall in Dallas, Georgia, where Walmart shoppers and patients in the community have taken to the concept. Centers in other markets are about 6,800 square feet, which are still much larger than the 19 Walmart Health brand “Care Clinics” that take up about 1,500 square feet inside stores elsewhere in Georgia, South Carolina and Texas. The retailer says the Care Clinics remain an important part of their healthcare offerings, but are more limited in service.
“We recognize we can make an impact by increasing access to quality, affordable and convenient healthcare as we invest millions of dollars and expand Walmart Health into Florida, which is home to the second highest number of Walmart stores in the country,” Walmart’s senior vice president of health and wellness, Sean Slovenski said in a blog post on Wednesday. “It’s also where we launched our $4 generic prescription program more than a decade ago.”
The move by Walmart comes as CVS Health opens hundreds of “HealthHubs” which include additional health and wellness items and services beyond what’s already available in the drugstore chain’s MinuteClinics. Meanwhile, Walgreens Boots Alliance earlier this month announced a $1 billion investment into VillageMD to bring the startup’s doctor-staffed clinics to hundreds of Walgreens stores across the U.S. Walgreens has been partnering with an array of companies, testing everything from urgent care in attached centers operated by UnitedHealth Group’s Optum MedExpress unit to Partners in Primary Care Clinics for Medicare beneficiaries that are operated by Humana.
Walmart’s new healthcare services centers are still at least double the size of many of the Walgreens and CVS Health efforts. Earlier this month, Walgreens said “most of the (Village Medical at Walgreens) clinics will be approximately 3,330 square feet each, with some as large as 9,000 square feet.”
In an interview last year, Slovenski described the new Walmart Health centers as “a super center for basic healthcare services.”
The larger Walmart Health Center puts “key health services under one roof,” a first for the world’s largest retailer when it comes to offering primary care, dental, optometry, counseling, laboratory tests, X-rays, hearing, wellness education and behavioral health. “It’s clear our model is working, but there’s also more to be done to ensure every family has access to care,” Slovenski said last year.
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