((KNWA\/NBC))-- The nation's largest retailer is making the move from urgent care and flu shots into primary care. <\/p>\n
By the end of the year, primary care clinics will open in a dozen rural Walmart stores. <\/p>\n
The retailer recently launched its newest health clinic with a marching band and fanfare. The company is looking to change the game in retail health, offering more services at a lower cost than its rivals. <\/p>\n
\"Price matters to our customers and associates. So the Walmart Care Clinic is really about establishing that new price point,\" says Jennifer Laperre, Walmart U.S. Sr. Dir. Health and Wellness. <\/p>\n
At a time when more workers face higher out of pocket health costs, Walmart's clinics offer expanded in-store services like physicals and wellness check-ups, face to face with nurse practitioners for a total of $40.00. For its employees it's just $4.00. <\/p>\n
While it is only a pilot program for now, analysts say if Walmart can make this level of pricing work, it will pose a challenge not just to other retail clinic rivals, but to other providers, doctors and hospitals. <\/p>\n
\"They are a real opportunity, they are a real threat in many different places, and if providers don't respond accordingly, they could see many of their most profitable channels disrupted,\" says Christopher Kerns, with the Advisory Board Company. <\/p>\n
Walmart is facing its own higher health costs, as more of its associates are now enrolling in its health plan in the wake of the Affordable Care Act. That plays a big a part in the retailer's clinic equation. <\/p>\n
\"That's a pretty good way to handle that added enrollment and first-time health coverage consumers,\" says Neil Trautwein. with the National Retail Federation. <\/p>\n
And it doesn't hurt that once they're all in the clinics, they'll likely shop in the store. <\/p>\n
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