Walmart Health Continues to Expand Capabilities Through Partnerships

Walmart launched Walmart Health to provide affordable, transparent pricing for key health center services for local customers, regardless of insurance status. Walmart’s goal in the short-term is to provide omnichannel care offerings that are low cost, equitable, trusted and meet consumers on their terms.

Walmart’s large volume of diverse assets gives it a front-row spot in supporting Americans’ clinical care, personal health behaviors and “the largest unmet health need in our country”: access to fresh foods.

Walmart is working to extend the company’s reputation for low-cost products into its healthcare services for the sake of its consumers—or more specifically, ensure that value-based care becomes “the norm of how it provides services and care across the country”. Alongside leveraging its scale and supply chain, this means finding the right providers and partners.

The majority of the retailer’s 1.5 million U.S. associates live in the communities immediately surrounding their stores. These individuals very often understand the cultural and healthcare needs of the people around them and will be vital as Walmart works to establish itself as a reliable health resource.

Last time we checked in, Walmart Health was in the process of rapidly hiring executives to its leadership team. Most recently, Marcus Osborne, who played a key role in Walmart’s push into healthcare and headed up its medical clinics, has left the company. Osborne, who served as senior vice president of Walmart Health, announced his departure in a LinkedIn post Jan. 1, 2022.

As part of the company’s emphasis on healthcare, Walmart recently:

  • Partnered with artificial intelligence company Health at Scale to connect Walmart employees with providers best suited to their health needs and care history. Health at Scale’s platform uses machine learning and AI to give patients personalized provider recommendations, by modeling which providers are likely to provide better outcomes based on the patient’s individual health characteristics. The tools will be available to Walmart associates and their families enrolled in the company’s health plan at select locations. 
  • Partnered with Quest Diagnostics to enable consumers to buy on-location and at-home health care laboratory tests through Walmart.com. Quest Diagnostics said that the new Walmart-Quest website offers more than 50 tests for purchase, including general health, digestive health, allergy, heart health, women’s health, and COVID-19 and other infectious disease. Depending on the test, people will be prompted to schedule an appointment at one of Quest’s 2,220 patient service centers nationwide — including locations at selected Walmart stores — or they will be sent an at-home test kit with detailed sample-collection instructions.

 

Takeaway: Walmart has been increasing its patient base since t2019 and now offers a number of services in primary care, telehealth, discounted pharmaceuticals and more