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Diving overview:
- Walmart Health plans to partner with Florida’s insurance companies and health systems to improve care coordination between its health centers and outside providers.
- The partnership announced Tuesday includes Sunshine Health’s Ambetter, which Centene operates and offers plans in the state’s Affordable Care Act marketplace, and 29 hospitals and free-standing emergency rooms, outpatient and urgent care centers. Includes Orlando Health’s Unbetter, a system that includes. Located in central Florida. This is Walmart Health’s first patient care coordination agreement with a health system.
- The partnership comes as Walmart and other retailers expand their presence in healthcare delivery. The store operator currently operates 23 Walmart Health Centers adjacent to its Florida locations, offering primary care, labs, select imaging services, behavioral health and dental care.
Dive Insight:
As part of the partnership, Ambetter will include Walmart Health Centers as a preferred provider in seven Florida counties through the Ambetter Value Plan, the companies said in a press release. They will initially focus on patient engagement through care coordination and provider referral management.
Orlando Health aims to provide better care transitions and communication between Walmart Health Centers and Orlando healthcare providers.
Founded in 2019, Walmart Health includes 48 stores in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and Texas. The retail giant plans to add dozens of new centers next year and open its first clinics in Missouri, Arizona and Oklahoma.
But Walmart isn’t the only retailer They are competing for space in the U.S. healthcare market. Earlier this year, CVS completed its $10.6 billion acquisition of primary care chain Oak Street Health and its $8 billion acquisition of home health care provider Signify Health.
Walgreens is also focused on growing its U.S. healthcare division, which includes its Village MD medical group.of Management said on an earnings call last month that the chain and its recently acquired clinic, Summit Health, will be the most meaningful driver of the division’s growth in 2024, even as the company exits unprofitable clinics in five regions next year. It is expected that this will be promoted.
Amazon also acquired primary care chain One Medical for $3.9 billion earlier this year. Amazon Clinic, the company’s telemedicine marketplace set to launch in late 2022, may also contract with physical providers to provide care that vendors cannot provide virtually, Amazon said. -Nwora Ayogu, the clinic’s general manager and chief medical officer, said this on HLTH last month.