In recent news, Walmart has made the decision to shut down all of its health centers across five states as well as its virtual healthcare service due to a lack of profitability. The company cited challenging reimbursement environments and escalating operating costs as reasons for the closure of its healthcare services.
The first Walmart Health center opened in Georgia in 2019 and offered primary care, dental services, x-rays, and lab tests. Walmart later opened additional centers in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, and Texas. However, the closure of these centers will not affect Walmart’s 4,600 pharmacies and 3,000 vision centers.
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, 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.