Those are high costs relative to average outcomes and poor satisfaction, he said. Two major factors are causing stirs like this in the US healthcare system, Lance Wilkes, a senior healthcare analyst at Bernstein, told Insider. The industry has become a key battleground for Amazon and Walmart as the business of getting care changes and consumers are playing a bigger role in companies' success.

'These retail giants have both hit on the need to bring care to the consumer and are capitalizing on the seismic shift we see happening across the industry.' Why healthcare is the battleground of choice 'The healthcare market is finally shifting to become consumer-centric,' Arielle Trzcinski, a principal analyst at Forrester, said. Simultaneously, Walmart and Amazon are trying to own a piece of one of the largest industries in the US and use it to support their core retail businesses. That came after Walmart slowed its ambitious clinic rollout and after at least nine key health leaders had left since the start of 2020, Insider previously reported.Īmazon's and Walmart's recent moves are signs of how quickly care delivery is changing because of the coronavirus pandemic and how fed up behemoth companies are with soaring healthcare costs in the US. It announced that expansion in March, and on Wednesday, Insider reported that the group had its first client, a fitness company recently acquired by Peloton.Īnd on Thursday, Walmart Health announced it would acquire a small telehealth company, MeMD, thus adding virtual care to its strictly in-person healthcare business. In December, Insider reported that Amazon Care was gearing up for a national expansion that would serve other companies, not just Amazon's employees. Two years later, it's clear that these shopping rivals' healthcare businesses are just getting started. Since then, Amazon Care has expanded to signing up other companies, promising to lower their healthcare costs. Less than two weeks later, CNBC's Christina Farr reported Amazon launched its own primary-care clinic, but this one was mostly virtual and, at that point, just available for Amazon's Seattle employees. The idea was to provide good, cheap primary care in underserved populations and catch up to rivals like CVS. On September 13, 2019, Walmart launched its inaugural primary-care clinic.Ĭalled 'Walmart Health,' it was a new chapter of the company's healthcare strategy. It's a sign of a troubled, evolving industry in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.Two years later, Amazon Care has its first client and Walmart Health is buying a telehealth company.Walmart and Amazon launched their healthcare-delivery businesses within weeks of each other in 2019.Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.

Walmart venture