Walmart Shuts Down Health Clinics Due to Challenging Environment; Returning Focus to Pharmacies and Vision Centers

Renowned retail giant Walmart has announced its decision to shut down all of its health-care clinics across various locations including Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and Texas. Furthermore, the corporation plans on halting activities carried out by a previously obtained telehealth organization as well without revealing any information about their value during acquisition in 2021. In around ninety days time span beginning from Tuesday’s notice given by Walmart; fifty-one clinic locations will be closed down permanently. The company has also clarified that this move would not impact its existing pharmacies and vision centers which currently stand at approximately four thousand six hundred and more than three thousand respectively, as stated in a press release issued on the matter.
Walmart attributed the closure of these clinics to a “challenging reimbursement environment” and increased operational expenses, with an acute shortage of healthcare workers being cited by two sources familiar with this decision made by Walmart’s management team. This announcement comes just one month after Walmart announced its plans for expanding clinic sites located inside various store branches. Back then they mentioned the launch of 22 new clinics in the year ahead and a subsequent plan to unveil additional facilities within five years, but this recent turnaround appears as quite an unexpected reversal given that it was only last fall when Walmart’s CFO Brett Biggs spoke about their ambitious plans for healthcare reform during investor meetings.
The decision by Walmart is yet another indication of the difficulties involved in disrupting and improving America’s complex, expensive, entrenched medical system which costs more than four trillion dollars annually to maintain its current operations across multiple sectors such as drug manufacturers, insurers and other players operating within this space. In 2019 Walmart launched their first ever Walmart Health clinic in Georgia, gradually increasing the number of branches at neighbouring store locations following its successful opening thereof whereby consumers were provided access to both dental treatments or therapy sessions alongside routine medical check-ups for as little as $30 per session.
The company’s decision comes amidst a challenging period marked by high executive turnover and numerous changes in leadership roles within Walmart Health, with the most recent change taking place last month when Cheryl Pegus was appointed to head up this division of operations following her previous role at Alphabet’s Verily Life Sciences. In light of these new developments CVS, Amazon (following their $3.9bn acquisition of One Medical) and Walgreens Boots Alliance have all announced ambitious plans for opening or acquiring doctor offices respectively.
As a result of this decision made by Walmart to shut down its clinics the company will return back to offering traditional healthcare services that it provided prior to launching these facilities, namely pharmacies and vision centres only while continuing to offer appointments at existing clinic locations until they eventually close down operations altogether according to reports issued earlier. This unexpected U-turn made by Walmart signals an about face following numerous assertions presented publicly including speeches during annual stockholders meeting such as Brett Bigg’s declarative affirmations a little under three years ago highlighting that ‘these services offer better living options for customers’ and how the company was committed to making healthcare more affordable, accessible and convenient via their store network.