What about Walmart's plans to add health clinics?

Nov 11 2011

After questions from reporters, the retailer backpedaled from earlier reports about confidential documents, saying it didn't plan on dominating the medical market in the way it dominates the discount-store business.

Kaiser Health News: Capsules: Walmart Clarifies, Sort Of
Does Walmart aim to be a major player in the world of primary care health services – or not? A request for information letter the retailer sent to its strategic partners in late October says the firm wants just that – but  Walmart backed off on its own document Wednesday, calling  part of it 'overwritten and incorrect' (Appleby, 11/9). Read the original KHN story: Walmart Wants To Be Nation's Biggest Primary Care Provider (Appleby and Varney, 11/9).

The Wall Street Journal: Wal-Mart To Add Clinics
But under questioning by reporters, the Bentonville, Ark., retailer quickly backpedaled Wednesday, saying it wasn't planning to dominate the medical market the way it has dominated discount stores. Instead, the company said, it was really talking about expanding the quick-service clinics it already runs at some of its stores, where customers can get basic services such as cholesterol monitoring and pregnancy tests. The "statement of intent is overwritten and incorrect," John Agwunobi, Wal-Mart's president of U.S. health and wellness, said in a statement. "We are not building a national, integrated, low-cost primary-care health-care platform" (Bustillo and Martin, 11/10).

Los Angeles Times: Wal-Mart Considers Expanding Healthcare Services At Its Clinics
Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is exploring ways to expand the kinds of healthcare services it offers at dozens of stores across the country, potentially setting the stage to turn the nation's largest retailer into a major primary care service provider and drive down costs for millions of Americans (Helfand and Hsu, 11/10).

USA Today: Wal-Mart Looks Into Expanding Services At Health Clinics
Wal-Mart issued a "Request for Information" at the end of October seeking partners to help the retailer develop a "low-cost primary care health care platform," first reported by Kaiser Health News and NPR. In a statement Wednesday, Wal-Mart downplayed suggestions of a nationwide initiative, calling its own plans "to build a national, integrated," system, "overwritten and incorrect" (Malcolm, 11/9).

Reuters: Walmart Denies Plan To Build Major Health Platform
Wal-Mart Stores Inc erroneously portrayed its ambitions as a healthcare provider in a document sent to potential vendors recently, leading to the mistaken impression that the world's largest retailer wanted to become a national primary care provider. The document says that Wal-Mart sought to become "the largest provider of primary healthcare services in the nation" (Wohl, 11/9).

ABC: Attention Walmart Patients…Health Care In Aisle 4?
Walmart has been working under the radar (not anymore) to be the "largest provider of primary healthcare services in the nation," according to a request for healthcare partners leaked online today by NPR. The 14-page request details the superstore's mission to "expand access to high quality health services" and "dramatically lower the cost of healthcare." The plan would see primary care clinics popping up throughout the Walmart's 3,500-store empire just in time for health care reform, which will mean millions more insured customers (Conley, 11/9).