NYT: Walmart marketing itself as primary care provider

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — With a handful of primary care locations already in operation, Walmart is reportedly making a more aggressive push into medical care by not only planning to open additional clinics but it is also marketing itself as a primary care provider, the New York Times has reported.



Walmart currently has five primary care clinics in South Carolina and Texas, and is opening a sixth location on Friday in Palestine, Texas. Another six locations are slated to open by year-end, the New York Times reported.



With a broader range of services, like chronic disease management, compared with the acute care clinics leased by hospital operators at Walmart stores around the country, the retailer is putting the clinics in more rural areas where physicians can be scarce and where medical care can be quite expensive, according to the New York Times article.



To open the clinics, which are run by nurse practitioners and medical assistants, Walmart has partnered with QuadMed. Each clinic has a supervisory physician who oversees compliance and prescriptions at one or two clinics, the New York Times stated, but the physician does not actually treat patients.