What do all of these brands have in
common?
Apple, Amazon, Google, and now Walmart.
If you have been reading the
blogs here, you will know that Apple, Amazon, and Google have all stepped into
the healthcare industry, and now Walmart has opened it's first Urgent Care
center.
Named "Walmart Health," this new urgent care facility and is located in Dallas,
Georgia, roughly 45 minutes from Atlanta. This new facility is not the limited
services "Care Clinics" that Walmart operated in other areas of Georgia, South
Carolina, and Texas. This new facility offers services ranging from primary
care, X-ray and EKG, counseling, dental, optical, hearing, and community health
services. In essence, Walmart Health will offer a complete selection of services
for the entire family except for emergency treatment of injuries and illness.
And when we say the entire family, we mean the whole family, including the
family pets. Walmart Health will also offer an "Essential PetCare Clinic" for
routine vaccinations and minor illnesses at their Port Richey Walmart store.
With the success of this veterinary clinic in Port Richey, it will not be a hard
decision to expand these veterinary clinics to other
locations.
Additionally, Walmart has retail pharmacies and vision centers
located in most stores. The retailer has recently begun updating the look and
experience at these two mainstays in their shopping centers. As part of the
renovations, these two departments will increase the use of technology to
enhance the patient experience and reduce wait times to give a higher level of
customer experience.
As one of the critical factors to Walmart's industry
success, Walmart Health will offer value upfront pricing for their services.
Patients will receive an estimated cost of services when booking their
appointment. As an individual who has visited his fair share of urgent care
centers and hospitals, I have never once known what my out of pocket costs were
until months later when insurance had paid the facility, and they sent me an
invoice.
What will separate Walmart Health from many urgent care
facilities is the fact that it is staffed primarily with physicians and medical
specialists as well as nurses, physicians assistants, and nurse practitioners.
This fact translates to patients seeing doctors for first-time visits and more
severe illnesses/injuries and then follow-ups with physicians assistants and
nurse practitioners. At my previous primary care physician's office, of which I
was a patient for eight years, I never once met with the doctor but instead was
treated by his physicians assistants and nurse practitioners. (After mentioning
this to my wife, I have since left that practice for greener pastures and am
very happy with my new primary care physician.)
When following the
progress of Walmart's venture into healthcare over the last three years, its
long term vision becomes clear. With another Walmart Health full-service urgent
care facility scheduled to open in Calhoun, Georgia, in 2020, Walmart is looking
at these new facilities as a serious strategy. With over 4500 retail superstore
locations in the United States, Walmart could make the most significant impact
of the global brands that have stepped into healthcare. For some areas, this
could be the solution to the rural healthcare crisis we have covered in our
blogs in November 2018 and June 2019. With nearly 20% of
rural healthcare facilities on the brink of insolvency or closing, Walmart can
fill the gap for the underserved people in these rural areas.
For
healthcare facilities located in city centers that are fighting for market
share, these new Walmart Health Centers will add a new level of competition to
an already overcrowded marketplace. With its value, up-front pricing model, and
the use of technology, Walmart will grab the attention of the value-conscious
consumer and those looking for alternatives to traditional healthcare
facilities.
Let's face it; if Walmart wants to throw money at this new
concept, we know by their business model, they will eventually disrupt the
businesses of the small primary care facilities and urgent care centers. So what
can facilities do to compete with Walmart Health? One of the factors that can
differentiate a small hospital or urgent care facility is the quality and
accuracy of the care received. Choosing state-of-the-art technology, such as the
highest quality x-ray equipment, is imperative for a facility to stand out
versus a Walmart or other big-box urgent care facility. Becker's Hospital
Review
lists Clinical Quality* as one of the top factors in differentiating
modern
Urgent Care sites. As a medical professional, where would you prefer to take a
family member for an x-ray? To urgent care or other medical facilities that are
using outdated equipment such as CR or film? Or to a modern facility that uses
DR x-ray equipment? Regardless of your opinion of Walmart in general, wouldn't
you prefer a better quality image for the physician to diagnose your illness or
injury, than worry about the name of the facility?
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