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Wal-Mart Health?03 04 06 15  24
-------- Save on every day ailments
They are doing the same thing for healthcare now. (Read the article in cnnFN.com.) They are tackling run of the mill ailments like “colds, flu, strep throat and pink eye” by using nurse practitioners licensed to prescribe drugs. The pharmacy is just conveniently located next door (within the big store door) and offers the same commodities that big pharmacies offer at the same low prices. Would I go to one of those low cost clinics? Sure I would! The $45 fee is high compared to my deductible, but it is low compared to my lost time of having to make an appointment, driving to the doctor’s office and waiting. It is also about the same or less than my Emergency Room deductible. If I can get the antibiotic I need for a throat infection or the flu shot I need to stay healthy during winter for $45 I would go for it. I am sure that an un-insured person would go even faster when he/she learns that the difference between the office visit and the Wal-Mart clinic is $50. Even my wife, with her High Deductible plan would be happy to go to Wal-Mart.I would not go for anything more than the simple ailments, and I hope neither does everyone else in this country. What I hope this does is offload the health care system from the easily treatable conditions and allow them more time to treat the life threatening conditions that really matter. Would Wal-Mart make extra money out of these clinics? That is difficult to know right now. Cold treatments are a pretty low margin commodity: that is why Family Physicians are suffering so much right now, people just go to them to get cold medicine that could even be got over the counter. Wal-Mart is smart; they are just renting out the space to the actual providers. What Wal-Mart is hoping to accomplish is to keep you more time within their Super Center walls, spending more of your hard earned cash there. Carrefour has done a great job at the concept of stores within a super store in France and other countries where they have penetrated. Wal-Mart is just starting to do so. However, they are addressing a market that few would have dared: Healthcare. Go Wal-Mart! |
I love Wal-Mart. When I need undershirts, blank CDs, motor oil, or liquid detergent I go there. I do not go there for a suit, a fast graphics card, tires and wheels, or a washing machine, however. I just know that for simple, run of the mill commodities they have the same products as everyone else, at the exact same quality that everyone else, for a much lower price.