Will Telehealth Finally Help Walmart Grab a Viable Spot in the Healthcare Marketplace?

As JUCM and JUCM News readers know, Walmart has taken any number of stabs at trying to establish a successful healthcare business (all to no avail, at this point). Having failed to gain traction with physical Walmart Health locations, they’ve now gone the virtual route by acquiring telehealth provider MeMD and parted ways with a number of Walmart Health senior executives in the process. Whether you view the latest move as evolution in its strategy or abandonment of a failed strategy, it’s certainly a sign of the company’s commitment to make a splash as a healthcare provider. What’s really interesting, though, is that Walmart has a history of touting its brick-and-mortar locations as preferable to virtual vendors like Amazon. So, at the very least going virtual is an about-face for its longstanding claim that an in-person experience is superior to online interactions.