Posted on 10/19/2014 5:01:22 PM PDT by Hojczyk
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. pushed down prices for some generic prescription drugs to just $4 eight years ago, setting a new industry standard. Now it is trying to do the same for seeing a doctor.
On Friday, a Walmart Care Clinic opened in Dalton, Ga., six months after Walmart U.S., the retailer’s WMT, +0.38% biggest unit, entered the business of providing primary health care. It now operates a dozen clinics in rural Texas, South Carolina and Georgia and has increased its target for openings this year to 17.
An office visit costs $40, which Walmart U.S. says is about half the industry standard, and just $4 for Walmart U.S. employees and family members with the company’s insurance. A pregnancy test costs just $3, and a cholesterol test $8. A typical retail clinic offers acute care only. But a Walmart Care Clinic also treats chronic conditions such as diabetes. (Walmart U.S. also leases space in its stores to 94 clinics owned by others that set their own pricing.)
“It was very important to us that we establish a retail price in the health-care industry because price leadership matters to us,” said Jennifer LaPerre, a Walmart U.S. senior director responsible for health and wellness, in an interview.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
What’s wrong with that?
But since it is not a government clinic the left will say this is baaaaaaad.
I can see the printed results for this now.....
1. They are driving the mom&pop small town doctors out of business.
2. They are evil.
3. They contributed money to Republicans.
4. They are based in Arkansas not NYC so how can those rubes know or do anything right?
5. They are non-union
6. They sell Chinese merchandise not over priced American boutique items
7. The groceries there are not organic, free range, bio kinetic non-GM Eurozone approved!!!!!!!!!
8. Blacks and Hispanics shop there not rich white liberals
The world is gonna end if these clinics turn out to do a better job than government sponsored health care
Nothing but My guess is they use nurse practitioners.
$40.
Do they speak English?
I love it how Walmart just sticks it right into the eyeballs of the left.
I like FNP...more patient oriented because of their nursing degree. Besides all FNP and PA are supervised by MD
Probably not but half the doctors here don't either.
It is not socialized medicine. It is a free market solution to a problem. It is therefore bad. Very very bad.
If nothing else, these clinics might keep the ones with hangnails out of the ER.
Our local (NorCal) Walmart just closed their clinic, which is basically an auxiliary office of the local hospital group. Too bad, too.
As opposed to most of the clinics that accept Medicare, Medicaid or Obamacare.
No wait, even doctors from third-world hell-holes don't accept Medicare, Medicaid or Obamacare.
Go Wal-Mart go! Crush unions! Abolish the minimum wage! Let the free market prevail! Defund the CDC and FDA!
Not to mention that, owing to its deep red/rural surroundings, it's a clean and well-run store.
And the pharmacy folks are always quite courteous/helpful, even on the couple times I was vey stressed and not returning the favor.
Thank you WM !
They might use nurse practioners, but so does ObamaCare. When the employer mandate kicks in next year, employers will quit offering health insurance and will dump millions of employees into ObamaCare. We won’t be able to keep our doctors and compared to the nightmare of government run medical care, the Walmart clinics may look pretty good to us.
+1
Are those your talking points? You seem to repeat them enough.
They are still in bed with the government model. It is doomed to fail.
They also sell birth control pills for around $10 a month but liberal idiots (Sandra “Slut” Fluke) think they should be free.
I wish their mothers had free birth control and/or abortions. /s
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