Walmart is leveraging its million-person-strong health plan to develop a featured provider network it's testing in Northwest Arkansas, Dallas and Orlando, Fla., TB&P reports.
What you should know:
1. In Arkansas, the department store partnered with Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield and is using a "quality assessment filter" to select and partner with physicians in gastroenterology, primary care, endocrinology, obstetrics, oncology, orthopedics and pulmonology.
2. Analytics company Embold Health partnered with Walmart to develop the quality assessment filter. Embold based the filter on appropriateness of treatment, efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
3. To make the list, Embold Health CEO Daniel Stein said physicians must consistently deliver high-quality care that is medically appropriate.
4. Walmart health plan beneficiaries who see a physician on the approved list will receive "maximum payouts of benefits," while seeing a physician not on the list will result in higher out-of-pocket costs fielded by the beneficiary.
5. Walmart said the initiative aims to help its beneficiaries select quality providers.