Walmart’s decision to shutter its Walmart Health initiative at the end of April left some healthcare industry experts wondering: If Walmart—the largest company in the world by revenue—can’t profitably operate primary care clinics, who can?

Well, according to Hal Andrews, president and CEO of healthcare analytics firm Trilliant Health, the retail giant likely made the decision not because it couldn’t figure out how to sustainably run the clinics, but because executives realized that other facets of the healthcare industry—including services like immunizations and specialty pharmacy—are much more profitable.

In a press release announcing the health initiative’s closure, Walmart executives said a “challenging reimbursement environment and escalating operating costs create a lack of profitability that make the care business unsustainable for us at this time.”

But given Walmart’s scale, it’s “unbelievable” that the company couldn’t make money operating its 51 primary care clinics, which were predominantly located in rural areas, Andrews told Healthcare Brew.

Keep reading here.—MA

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It’s the first anniversary of the Medicaid unwinding for many states, a process that kicked off when federal rules that had kept people on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) through the pandemic expired. And while states could redetermine eligibility again, things have “unwound” more than some experts predicted. Children were kicked off the rolls at higher rates than adults, according to a new study the Urban Institute released May 2. Twelve states—Montana, Iowa, South Dakota, Alabama, Idaho, Georgia, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Florida, Mississippi, Colorado—exceeded 100% of their total projections for disenrolling children.

Eight states—South Dakota, New Hampshire, Texas, Arkansas, Iowa, Idaho, Montana, and Oklahoma—also exceeded 100% of their total projections for disenrolling both adults and children.

Experts following the process expected to see some states with more disenrollments, but they didn’t realize so many of those losing coverage would be children, Katherine Hempstead, a senior policy advisor at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said.

Keep reading here.—NB

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Neelam at [email protected]. For confidential conversations, ask Neelam for her number on Signal.

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