Walmart Doesn’t Want You to Go to the Doctor

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Walmart Doesn’t Want You to Go to the Doctor

© it was the closest place and I... (CC BY 2.0) by frankieleon

Walmart wants to eliminate the long wait for a doctor’s appointment and the high cost of visiting them. It is expanding its in-house health care programs so you can drive to its stores to get medical treatment. The decision may even hurt the medical profession. (These companies have the worst reputations.)
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Walmart pharmacists will play the role of doctors, no matter how unsettling that may seem. Walmart wants you to feel better fast. The company reported: “That’s why we’re proud to pioneer Testing and Treatment: a new program that lets Walmart pharmacists test customers for strep throat, the flu and COVID-19 – then help treat them – all in one place.” As COVID-19 begins to spread again and flu season approaches, Walmart seems to have timed the launch of its plan almost perfectly.
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Walmart will start to provide the service in 12 states. The service will be available seven days a week. Few doctors can top that.
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Walmart decided to stretch the truthfulness of the argument for its new Testing and Treatment program. The nation’s largest retailer has repeatedly said that one of its stores is within 10 miles of 90% of the U.S. population. The new program is in only 12 states. Walmart has a long way to go before its program is “universal.”
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And the Walmart plan is not as good as it seems in another way. No insurance, for now. People will need to pay cash, starting at $133 per visit. How high can the price per visit go? As high as that for visiting a doctor.

Walmart’s announcement is not nearly as good as it seems, not even close.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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