Walmart Closes Health Centers, Telehealth Unit Over Rising Costs
-
https://nypost.com/2024/04/30/business/walmart-to-close-51-health-clinics-stop-telehealth-service/
Walmart will shut down scores of health centers as well as its telehealth business due to the exorbitant operating and reimbursement costs, the big-box retailer said on Tuesday.
Since 2019, the company opened 51 one-stop health centers — each located next to Walmart Supercenter locations scattered across five states.
Walmart initially stated its goal was to build more than 75 clinics — where patients could obtain dental, medical and behavior health services such as X-rays and deep teeth cleanings — across the country by the end of this year.
“This is a difficult decision, and like others, the challenging reimbursement environment and escalating operating costs create a lack of profitability that make the care business unsustainable for us at this time,” the company said in a blog post on Tuesday.
The company declined to reveal how much money it invested in building out the clinics.
Walmart has also not stated how much revenue these clinics generated.
The retailer has also not said how many jobs it would eliminate as a result of the move, though it did add that associates affected by closures would be permitted to transfer to any other Walmart or Sam’s Club location.
Walmart said it would continue to operate its thousands of pharmacies and vision centers throughout the country.
-
WOuld someone be able to give a paragraph or two summary as to why medical costs are so high in the US?
too many middleman?
too high labor costs?
??Countries in Asia are really promoting medical tourism. Preplanned procedures (for ex. hip or knee replacement) can be done for about 30-40% of the cost in the US. This is using western trained doctors and western quality equipment.
-
Secondly, the U.S. government has created a Byzantine Bible of rules and standards, leading to an explosion of medical drones, who toil in fury trying to manage that which does not need managing and completing mountains of forms which accomplish nothing.
Just this week, the FDA has decided they are going to regulate LDTs (lab developed tests). Usually, these are esoteric tests for use in diagnosing and treating low volume disease. Now,vwe can subject these tests to the same hoops as the submission of a new test for glucose.
