Walmart To Expand Health Clinics Into Oklahoma, Adding To 2024 Expansion

Walmart will expand its doctor-staffed “Walmart Health” centers it operates with four new health sites in the Oklahoma City area next year, the retailer said Wednesday.

The expansion into Oklahoma, which builds on earlier plans to more than double its Walmart Health center footprint to more than 75 clinics across the U.S. by the end of 2024, “adds 14 additional sites towards the 75+ site total by the end of 2024,” a Walmart spokeswoman said.

Wednesday’s announcement regarding the 14 additional health clinic locations next year also included a disclosure that five of the sites will be in the Dallas area; two in the Houston area; and three in the Kansas City area. In all, Walmart will be in eight states by the end of next year.

Walmart’s new centers build on the first 10,000 square foot facility that opened in 2019 in Dallas, Georgia, where Walmart shoppers and patients in the community have taken to the concept.

In the new Walmart expansion, the centers “will be approximately 5,750 square feet, located beside Walmart Supercenters, and will feature Walmart Health’s full suite of health services,” the retail giant said Wednesday. “These services may vary by location, but include primary care, labs, X-ray and EKG, behavioral health, dental, hearing, select specialty services, community health and telehealth.”

“Walmart Health exists to help Walmart customers live better by providing convenient access to affordable, high quality healthcare services for both insured and uninsured Oklahomans alike,” said Dr. David Carmouche, senior vice president of omnichannel care offerings at Walmart. “Knowing that access to comprehensive primary care, dental care, and behavioral health services is a challenge in many communities, it is our hope that this one-stop model will help solve this challenge for our neighbors in Oklahoma City.”

Carmouche said Walmart is “providing these services in a place where many already live and shop” and intentionally putting the health centers by “pharmacy and vision services and next to healthy foods in the Walmart grocery section.”

The move comes as rival retailer Amazon expands its doctor-staffed clinics across the country following its $4 billion acquisition of One Medical. Meanwhile, CVS Health is working to build out its own doctor-staffed clinic model via its $10 billion acquisition of Oak Street Health to compliment its in-store healthcare services that include more than 1,000 MinuteClinics. And Walgreens, too, is attaching doctor-staffed clinics via its partnership with VillageMD.

Walmart last year opened six doctor-staffed Walmart Health centers in Florida and two in Arkansas as the retail giant looks to expand low-cost healthcare services to tens of thousands of its customers. Walmart says it now has 34 Walmart Health centers across Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and Texas.