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 ...
Happens to me all the time. And I don't even need the flu!
Walmart is evil, so everything they do is evil.
And Obamacare is great.
I think that's how it works.
Sorry, I have those reversed.
And if you're really sick, head to the ER of a top regional hospital, like Presbyterian in Dallas.
It’s Walmart. All the doctors will speak Chinese.
(In fact, at the local Doc-in-a-Box, the doctors really don’t speak understandable English. But if you need a quick in-and-out for an antibiotic prescription for a sore throat and fever, it’s the best bet. Just don’t expect to know exactly what you had.)
Nurse Practitioners are handling a larger share of the patients load nationally. The trend grows with Obolacare.
My new primary care doctor escaped from the Sudan a bunch of years ago, first going to Mayo, then here to Grand Blanc, Michigan for a first rate prep school for his children. My son, Ace, tells me from on-site experience that Sudan really is a hell hole. I'm glad my doctor, and his family made it here. And yes, I can understand him quite well.
Somehow I’ll bet Walmart does a better job of it than the VA.
I would love to see Wal Mart open a University featuring online courses, with Wal Mart serving as a registrar. No more liberal orthodoxy professors, just credit hours at a bargain price without bricks and mortar! Give the liberal institutions their comeuppance for building multiple pleasure domes on the state taxpayer’s dime!
And almost always from higher socio-economic classes than most of us here.
I have only experienced excellent care going to nurse practitioners or physician assistants.
That’s calling it plain.
There is no excuse for common lab tests to cost what they do. I paid almost $900 for a standard lab battery this year.
BCBS is getting paid as a % of cost like a public utility used to be so they have no incentive to negotiate for lower prices like they did before obola care.
I think I paid less than $300 (my full cost since I had not satisfied my $5,000 deductible) last year for the same battery of lab tests before the “favor” of obola care.
Hey Obola! Thanks ASSHOLE!
“I’d say for minor stuff like the sniffles, a visit to a Walmart clinic is fine.”
I visit Sam’s to see my opthamologist who works there. She does a great job and is great looking. The price is also great, as in about $50 per visit/diagnosis. In spite of all the snarky comments on this thread, Sam’s and Walmart’s medical people do a great job without the lengthy wait most people anticipate when they go to their medical professional.
A friend is an MD old enough to retire. There is not a thing wrong with his credentials. He is a conservative. He has no financial worries.
He was forced to retire from his former position by the mega healthcare corporation that took over his former practice. He now works for a group practice that offers $39 office visits, low priced tests and includes antibiotics and other common meds. He does it to get even w/ the healthcare corporation and to continue to practice his profession.
The downside is he has lost his hospital affiliations and if someone needs hospitalization, they are referred to one of the MDs with privileges.
Meanwhile, his former employer bills $160 just for making an appointment and sitting in the waiting room. It costs $100 to see the orthopod’s PA and $200 to see the orthopedic MD. That is all before any diagnosis or treatment. With the way most insurance is structured these days, all that is paid by the patient against the deductible. Not to mention that the appointment charge is billed each time, the patient sees the PA and then has to make a second appointment to see the MD. It really adds up, as well as wasting a lot of time.
Yay, Walmart.
Dalton Ga? I understand understand illegal aliens outnumber everyone in that region..
The Wal-Mart clinic in Forest City, NC is staffed with Nurse Practitioners or Physicians Assistants. They are more than capable of giving high quality medical care. Anything more serious than they are trained/equipped for they refer to an MD.
The reason visits to the doctor cost so much is all the mandates forced on insurance companies by pressure groups that lobby legislators, the enormous amount of paperwork docs have to mess with, all the people who don’t pay that you pay for when you do, and the cost of malpractice insurance.
The only thing that can save US health care is a complete free market in health care. Government is ruining it.
This is a good thing. It has the potential for destroying Obamacare. In addition to highly qualified NPs, there are a lot of good physicians in this country that might just find working at a place like WalMart beats all the crap Obamacare is putting them through. I personally know several doctors that are looking into getting out of traditional medicine. Many don’t really need to worry about making a lot more money, and this type of clinic might suit them just fine.
I’m also guessing the paperwork will be much simpler, because WalMart will not need to have every diagnoses and treatment coded for insurance reimbursement. That alone would be attractive to many health professionals.
I don't think so. Patients will choose Walmart for everyday, acute conditions and simple maintenance treatment for certain chronic conditions. Very few procedure will be offered and no one will go there for chemotherapy or dialysis and serious conditions, much less hospitalization. Obamacare is about a lot more than the everyday stuff Walmart clinics handle.
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