The retail giant, Walmart, has recently announced the closure of its health centers across five states as well as its virtual health care service due to a lack of profitability. This decision was made by Walmart citing challenging reimbursement environment and escalating operating costs.
The first Walmart Health center opened in Georgia in 2019 and offered primary care, dental services, x-rays, and lab tests. Over the years, additional centers were opened in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, and Texas. The closure of these centers will not affect Walmart’s 4,600 pharmacies and 3,000 vision centers. However, employees of the closed health centers will have the option to transfer to other Walmart or Sam’s Club locations.
In addition to the closure of its health centers, Walmart also announced the shutdown of its telehealth service called Walmart Health Virtual Care which launched in 2022. This decision comes at a time when virtual doctor’s visits have sharply declined since the peak of the pandemic when many health providers turned to telehealth services due to social distancing protocols. Recent data shows that telehealth visits dropped in 2023 with Medicare beneficiaries who used at least one telehealth service falling 73% to 2.8 million in the second quarter of 2023 from a peak of 10.2 million in the same period in 2020.