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Tag: mental health clinic

  • Walmart Sets Its Sights On Mental Health Care

    Walmart Sets Its Sights On Mental Health Care

    This clinic is the first of its kind for the retail behemoth, but if successful, could be the first of many. 

    There’s a new resource for mental health in Dallas, Georgia—and it’s a bit unexpected. 

    Recently, Walmart announced it would be opening a new clinic called Walmart Health, debuting in the Georgia town and set to open sometime this month. 

    According to CNBC, the idea is to provide “comprehensive and low-cost primary care.” Among the services to be provided are primary care, dental care, counseling, labs, x-rays and audiology. The clinic will be housed in a building next to Walmart in order to provide more privacy for patients. 

    According to a Walmart spokesperson, there will be a focus on accessibility and affordability with the new clinic. 

    “Walmart is committed to making healthcare more affordable and accessible for customers in the communities we serve,” the representative said. “The new Walmart Health center in our Dallas, Georgia, store will provide low, transparent pricing for key health services for local customers. We look forward to sharing more details when the facility opens next month.”

    While this specific move is new for Walmart, the store isn’t a stranger to providing for those in need of health care. CNBC reports that the retailer is home to one of the largest pharmacies in the country, with locations in about 4,700 of its stores. According to the company itself, health and wellness made up about 9% ($36 billion) of its $332 billion in sales in the U.S. in the last fiscal year. 

    While mental health is a relatively new market for the retailer, this won’t be the first time Walmart has housed mental health care. For example, space for a behavioral health company was leased in a Texas store in 2018 because of a shortage in the area. 

    Walmart has also opened Care Clinics in various states in the past, but those have been housed in the actual store rather than in a separate space. 

    Part of the reasoning for the retailer branching out, Business Insider explains, is due to competition, specifically as Amazon has transformed the retail market. Now, traditional retailers are having to think outside the box in terms of what else they can offer customers. 

    “We all want to exist in 10 years,” Marcus Osborne, Walmart’s vice president of health and wellness transformation, told Business Insider last October. “None of us wants to be Sears.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Mental Health Clinic Finds A New Home In Walmart

    Mental Health Clinic Finds A New Home In Walmart

    The mental health clinic inside the Texas Walmart offers a variety of treatments and access to a licensed clinical social worker.

    Mental health services are being offered in Texas at an unexpected location: Walmart.

    According to the Boston Globe, Boston-based company Beacon Health Options opened the small clinic in the Carrollton, Texas Walmart last week. 

    Eventually, Beacon plans to open additional clinics in similar spaces in hopes of increasing mental health care options for those who may not have access to it otherwise.

    Currently, the Texas clinic has one licensed clinical social worker and provides treatment for anxiety, depression, grief, relationship issues and other common stressors. Patients can go online or call to schedule appointments. Walk-ins are also welcome. If the clinic is too busy, patients will have the option to use Skype to speak with a professional.

    The clinic is not meant for individuals with severe forms of mental illness, and operates on a sliding scale for patients without insurance.

    “People don’t know how to find a behavioral health or mental health professional,” said Beacon president and CEO Russell Petrella. “People don’t know where to go and what to do… We’re trying to mainstream behavioral health services.”

    According to Bonnie Cook, executive director of Mental Health America of Greater Dallas, the clinics are needed, as Mental Health America recently rated Texas as the state with the least access to mental health care. 

    “As a mental health community, we have to start thinking outside the box,” Cook told the Globe. 

    On the other hand, some professionals were critical of Beacon’s new venture because of the company itself.  

    “Offering mental health care in a retail setting is innovative and imaginative, and it could work,” Gary A. Chinman, Brookline psychiatrist and president of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society, told the Globe.

    However, he added that Beacon “would have to change a lot more about their business model for it to be successful.”

    Vic DiGravio, president and CEO of the Association for Behavioral Healthcare, expressed the same concerns, stating that Beacon is restrictive when it comes to providing care because of “procedural hurdles and inadequate pay.”

    “If Beacon were serious about expanding access to mental health services, it would focus on doing a better job in its current lines of business,” DiGravio told the Globe. “What Beacon is really good at is limiting access to treatment. They’re not so good at promoting access to treatment.”

    In speaking to the Globe, Petrella did note that some providers struggle with “administrative hassles” and that steps are being taken to solve such issues. 

    He adds that Beacon has good intentions when it comes to clinics such as the one in Texas.

    “We’re trying to fill in the gaps in care, trying to do it in a reasonable way, with low stigma, and make it convenient,” Petrella stated. “Hopefully, we can improve the quality of some people’s lives.”

    View the original article at thefix.com