Dollar General Aims to Supply Healthcare to the Underserved. Drugstore Clinics Should Take Note

Dollar General Aims to Supply Healthcare to the Underserved. Drugstore Clinics Should Take Note Dollar General has seen a lot of succes swhere many retailers couldn’t be bothered—by offering low prices with sometimes minimal selection to customers who may not have many other options. It’s worked, though, with some of their stores evolving to offer the only access to fresh fruits and vegetables for miles around when mom-and-pop grocery stores in rural communities close up and leave town. By essentially becoming an oasis in the middle of a food desert, Dollar General is providing an indispensable service to people who really need it. Now the company is expanding its efforts to do the same in healthcare. JUCM News readers may recall that about a year ago Dollar General hired a physician, Albert Wu, MD to lead its healthcare initiatives. Now they’ve brought in Patrick Carroll, MD, a former chief medical officer for Walgreens, to further bolster their efforts. Retailers like CVS and Walmart have tried to lead the way in rural retail healthcare market, with minimal success. With 18,000+ locations, though, Dollar General can certainly achieve economies of scale comparable or superior to either of those companies. It’s important to remember, with rural hospitals closing up at an alarming rate and larger UC chains focused on higher-population markets, that smaller markets may offer a golden opportunity for urgent care operators looking to expand where their services are badly needed. JUCM has covered this extensively. For starters, read Rural and Tertiary Markets: The Next Urgent Care Frontier in our archive.