Walmart's Big Test In Digital Health Revolution: Bringing Healthcare Online For Employees With Expanded, Cost-Effective Virtual Primary Care

Walmart Inc. WMT said it is expanding virtual primary care, building on the traditional telehealth service for occasional sick visits, to allow its employees and their families the option to develop long-standing relationships with quality doctors across the country.

Walmart launched a virtual primary care pilot in three states in 2020, according to Walmart. After seeing success across the board, Walmart expanded this virtual care pilot to 16 states, then again to 21 states in 2023, the company added. Among that group, patients who obtained primary care from Included Health decreased medical costs by about 10%. Early results also showed better health standards, such as diabetics lowering their blood sugar. 

The company will now offer online primary care doctors to about "1 million people" on its employee health insurance plan to enhance medical outcomes and lower expenditures, according to a news report by Bloomberg. 

Included Health will provide the expanded online access beginning Oct. 14.

"We were seeing good data" and that convinced the company to go nationwide, said Lisa Woods, Walmart's vice president of physical and emotional wellbeing, wrote Bloomberg.

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Woods declined to say how many people used the virtual primary care option, but she wants to increase the number. "I'm gonna tell you, it's not enough, and we would love to see more," the report said.

The expansion is likely to be a "big test" of how much treatment can shift to the internet, the report added.

At a time when healthcare costs are rising at the highest rates in a decade, and too many Americans grapple with access to primary and mental healthcare, Walmart has shown the effectiveness of virtual primary care to improve care access and reduce costs, Included Health said in a release.

The retailer has a number of motivations to extend the offering, the Bloomberg report noted. 

Walmart's U.S. benefit plan spent more than $6 billion on claims, insurance premiums and administrative costs in 2022, according to a filing with the Department of Labor, Bloomberg noted.

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Price Action: WMT shares are trading higher by 1.40% to $158.03 on the last check Tuesday. 

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