Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT) said Thursday it will add its Arkansas employees to a state effort aimed at lowering health care costs by changing the way private insurers and Medicaid pay for services, and it committed $670,000 to create a tracking system that would measure the initiative's success.
The world's largest retailer announced that it would participate in the state's payment improvement initiative, which moves away from a fee-for-service model to one where insurers pay for "episodes" of care rather than each individual treatment.
The Bentonville-based retailer said its 57,000 employees in the state will participate. Besides paying for the tracking program, the company also will help distribute information about the payments reforms and will serve on an employer advisory council for the state.
Officials with the company said they believed Wal-Mart and other private companies would save money with the payment reforms and that the program aligns with its discount philosophy.
"We believe if we can apply that mindset of saving people money so they can live better to the health care system, then we will all come out ahead," Sally Welborn, Wal-Mart's senior vice president of benefits, said at a news conference at the state Capitol.
Welborn said Wal-Mart, which self-insures its health program, has not estimated how much money it hoped to save in health care costs by joining the payment initiative.
