Healthcare has been changing over the years. With the influx of boutique hospitals, urgent care facilities and clinics, healthcare has changed a lot in just the last 10 years.
But it’s about to change again, thanks to Walmart (that’s right, Walmart).
The retail giant remodeled a store in Georgia earlier this year and added a new healthcare facility to it. Walmart customers at the location can now talk to a counselor, get their teeth cleaned, or get a regular medical checkup.
But get this: you don’t need an appointment.
Appointments aren’t necessary and insurance isn’t required either. It’s also flexible with services even available on Sundays. It’s unclear how big of a rollout this may turn out to be as the company’s president of U.S. health and wellness, Sean Slovenski, said, “It has to be a profitable business on its own.” He wouldn’t say how many patients were coming in to use the services but did say that it was much more than what the company was expecting.
So, your shopping experience will change at Walmart and could be something like this:
Walmart “care hosts” take you, the customer, from the waiting area to one of 12 care rooms in the 6,500-square-foot facility. Afterward, you would be steered to the in-store pharmacy. While you wait for your prescriptions, you’d of course, be able to visit the produce section and grab some veggies recommended by the doctor. Later, there’s even a free Zumba class in the community room.
In addition to medical, dental, and eye care, the centers also provide X-rays, hearing checks, and diagnostic lab tests for things like blood glucose and lipids — and you would get all of this under one roof.
Walmart opened its first pharmacy in 1978, but founder Sam Walton’s desire to adapt his low-price retail philosophy to the world of…
…health care kept coming in second to other growth initiatives. In the 1990s, Walmart focused on building massive Supercenters to break into the grocery sector, which accounted for 56% of its $332 billion in U.S. sales in 2018, the most recent data available.
Rather than tucked in a corner like many CVS or other convenient stores, Walmart care centers have separate entrances visible from the parking lot. They’re run by doctors, not nurse practitioners with plenty of exam rooms to support a steady stream of patients. Paperwork is almost nonexistent because many appointments don’t involve insurance, and administrative functions such as scheduling and billing have been outsourced to a back-office specialist called Zotec. (Walmart does accepts insurance, but patients might be better off paying the nominal flat fee)
This newest store is the company’s second store to feature a healthcare facility. The first was in September when Walmart began offering services in Dallas, Ga.
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