Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) likes the medical clinic business. Many of its customers do not have health insurance. It can deliver these people inexpensive care using nurse practitioners instead of doctors. Offering generic drugs also cuts costs to patients.
Wal-Mart plans to expand its clinic business into several hundred more stores. It will co-brand the operations with local hospitals and medical groups. That will most likely give the locations a greater air of legitimacy.
According to The New York Times “We have learned that people are willing to receive their health care from the front of a store or the back of a drugstore,” said Dr. John Agwunobi, a medical doctor who is a Wal-Mart senior vice president. The doctor must not be a trial lawyer.
Of course, it is fantastic that Wal-Mart can save people money on medical care, but such a large company makes a very nice target for people who feel that their visit was inadequate and that they were somehow harmed in the process of their time spent at the closest "super center".
Wal-Mart will serve tens of thousands of patients. It will need good malpractice insurance.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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