To Your Good Health

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (Bentonville, Ark.) will announce its intentions to contract with local hospitals and other organizations to open as many as 400 in-store health clinics over the next two to three years.

And, if current market forces continue, the retailer said that up to 2000 clinics could be in Wal-Mart stores over the next five to seven years.

Wal-Mart president and ceo Lee Scott will make the announcement today in a speech at the World Health Care Congress in Washington, D.C. “We think the clinics will be a great opportunity for our business,” says Scott. “But most importantly, they are going to provide something our customers and communities desperately need — affordable access at the local level to quality health care.”

The health clinics, which will lease space in Wal-Mart stores, will be managed by local or regional hospitals and/or other organizations that are independent of Wal-Mart. The move is an expansion of a pilot project begun in September 2005, when Wal-Mart started leasing space to medical clinics inside Wal-Mart stores. Currently, 76 clinics are operating inside Wal-Marts in 12 states.

The providers running the clinics will determine what services to offer, which will generally include preventive and routine care for conditions such as allergies and sinus infections, as well as basic services such as cholesterol screenings and school physicals. They will be staffed by either certified nurse practitioners or physicians.

Scott will also announce that Wal-Mart customers have saved about $290 million on selected generic prescription drugs since September 2006, when the company began selling prescriptions for $4 each. The $4 prescriptions now account for more than 35 percent of all prescriptions filled at Wal-Mart. Nearly 30 percent of the $4 prescriptions are filled without insurance.