- 8 Tactics for Negotiation with GPOs (Group Purchasing Organizations) - July 13, 2021
- Why I am not responding to your email - September 23, 2020
- FAH Conference 2020: Key Takeaways - March 4, 2020
Wal-Mart is pioneering two initiatives with the potential to disrupt current markets and put downward pressure on the cost to deliver care. Will your company help Wal-Mart? Let’s take a look at these two initiatives.
Wal-Mart provides health coverage for 1.1 million employees. Recently, the retail giant contracted with Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and four other Centers of Excellence where their covered employees can enjoy world class care for certain cardiac and orthopedic procedures. This is fascinating to me because it truly is the intent of reform manifested in a commercial and private pay environment. The most basic premise of this is contrary to the long held belief that “Better care is more expensive.” Wal-Mart is proving that notion incorrect by putting their money where their mouth is and contracting in a format that proves the best care is also the least expensive!
The more I read about healthcare in this time of reform, the more I notice that employers have a seat at the table. Who better to help rationalize the marketplace? Wal-Mart has put every local hospital in direct competition for those services with the likes of Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and the other Centers of Excellence. I can’t help but think the scope of services that Wal-Mart will contract for will only get wider.
The other initiative Wal-Mart is pursuing is outfitting all their rural stores with full primary care services in the next 5-7 years. Many studies show rural areas are where the expected shortage of primary care physicians will hit the hardest. It would truly be an example of meeting the patient where they are. Every week, 150 million Americans visit a Wal-Mart, averaging a 50-minute visit.
The below link is an interesting two-minute video from the Advisory Board on how Wal-Mart could be changing the game. I think it is worth the time to watch.
Wal-Mart is approaching the market uniquely. It creates quite a few questions for me.
How will these new care settings be supplied? How do you supply the ultimate supply chain company?
How will the local hospitals react? Do they embrace it or directly compete against it?
For years I have been informing readers and audiences that there is no business more local than providing healthcare. Now Wal-Mart is taking the locality of care much closer to home for many Americans.