From Axios (Link: https://www.axios.com/2024/06/11/health-retailers-walmart-walgreens-primary-care):
The big picture:
Even for giants like Walmart and Walgreens, the economic realities of primary care proved challenging, with its low reimbursement, growing labor and supply costs, and other workforce challenges.
Retailers have struggled to convince enough patients to give up traditional providers for their more comprehensive health care needs in the same place where they buy toilet paper.
That's led to some big losses. Walgreens earlier this year took a nearly $6 billion writedown as it closed dozens of primary care clinics. Walmart lost nearly a quarter-billion dollars before pulling the plug on its 51 in-store clinics, Endpoints reported last week.
Dollar General late last month shuttered a pilot with DocGo to bring mobile clinics to rural areas, showing that even smaller-scale efforts have also been challenging.
State of play:
Look for retailers to instead pursue health care services that people are accustomed to paying for out of pocket. For instance, Walmart is still keeping open its more than 3,000 vision clinics.
Other examples could include heavily cash-pay services like certain dental services that aren't typically covered by insurance, aesthetics, weight-loss drug management and veterinary care, said Kate Festle, a managing director at West Monroe.
She said the approach seems to be: "Let's really target the things that are at the peak of the hype cycle in terms of retail health so that we can at least enjoy and capitalize on those gains today while we figure out our broader health care delivery strategy."
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