Walmart is teaming up with startup General Medicine to expand its Better Care Services, turning the digital healthcare platform into a more comprehensive healthcare marketplace.
With the updated experience, which launches today, consumers can compare providers, see their potential costs with and without insurance and connect to care. Walmart and General Medicine provided Fierce Healthcare with a first look at the partnership.
Walmart rolled out Better Care Services in January as a digital healthcare network offering virtual urgent care and behavioral health consultations. Walmart executives declined to provide utilization figures for Better Care Services but said adoption has "exceeded its expectations."
Now powered by General Medicine's "healthcare store" infrastructure, Better Care Services has evolved from a directory of provider organizations to a site where customers can search and browse more than 900 different products and services, including urgent care—virtual via multiple providers and in-person via Solv—as well as lab tests and a wide range of telemedicine services for primary care, chronic conditions, mental health and care coordination.
The expanded marketplace brings together services offered by General Medicine, alongside more than 10 existing third-party providers, with plans to add more providers over time, according to Walmart executives.
With the expanded experience through Better Care Services, customers can see estimated out-of-pocket costs based on individual insurance information, alongside cash prices where offered, and evaluate available services based on factors such as location, cost, availability and personal preferences. Customers can also access the booking or other fulfillment options available for each service.
Consumers can access Better Care Services on Walmart.com, through the Walmart app or Sparky, Walmart's conversational AI shopping assistant. General Medicine powers the underlying platform and manages Better Care Services customer accounts and information separately from Walmart's retail business.
Consumers can shop by provider brand or by care need. Some of the healthcare categories available on Better Care Services now include urgent care, cold and flu, skin care, lab tests, mind and mood, weight loss, sexual health, women's health, men's health, digestive health, pain and injury, heart and chronic conditions.
"That updated platform is making it easier and effortless for customers to find care, to book care and to understand their insurance costs," Leslie Fletcher, vice president of growth and partnerships at Walmart, told Fierce Healthcare in an interview.
"We see a real need to make that effortless from end to end. The strategy for Walmart is that customers are already turning to us for everyday health and wellness needs, from their Rx to their food to their OTC [over the counter]. It's just fragmented, so we want to be able to take a customer from symptom to care to care delivered, and that could be anything in your combined basket, same day, within minutes, even delivered to your door or picked up at a store. And this inner layer helps us deliver that faster experience and make it super actionable for the customer," Fletcher said.
General Medicine, started by the founding team that built PillPack and Amazon Pharmacy, is an online marketplace where customers can search, compare and buy care, see insurance and cash prices before deciding, and get guidance from a licensed clinician. General Medicine launched nationwide in May 2025. Earlier this month, the company picked up $120 million in series B funding to build out its "healthcare store" and expand into more categories of care. It's raised $152 million to date.
Walmart brings the customer-facing experience, while General Medicine provides the technology that connects care options, coverage information and potential costs behind the scenes, executives said.
General Medicine makes Better Care Services more "shoppable," making it easier for consumers to understand their insurance coverage and compare their out-of-pocket costs across multiple providers, noted Amanda Deegan, head of Better Care Services at Walmart.
"We'll be able to show that co-insurance, show the cash pay price across providers before that care is delivered or even booked," she noted.
TJ Parker, General Medicine CEO, says the partnership with Walmart will bring its healthcare shopping experience to a much larger audience. About 150 million customers shop at Walmart each week through its U.S. physical and online channels.
"We’re building the care catalog that makes options easier to understand, compare, and buy. Walmart is an important partner in bringing that vision to life, showing how a more shoppable healthcare experience can meet customers where they already turn for everyday needs," he said.
Walmart sees the marketplace as part of a broader strategy to connect more pieces of a consumer's health journey across the retailer's entire portfolio of services, including pharmacy, grocery and over-the-counter health and wellness products.
"Yes, this is a digital experience, but it's also leveraging the pharmacists we have across 4,600 stores," Fletcher said, describing a model where a Walmart customer at the pharmacy counter who needs a medication refill can quickly connect with a clinician through Better Care Services and ultimately fill the resulting prescription at Walmart.
"It empowers the pharmacists, and we believe that's part of our secret sauce as well, that human touch you have with all the stores," she said.
Seven years ago, Walmart had bold ambitions to become a big player in healthcare, aiming to disrupt primary care by building doctor-staffed clinics inside or adjacent to its Supercenters. The retailer built out more than 50 health centers and acquired telehealth company MeMD in 2021. Five years later, in 2024, Walmart shuttered all 51 of its Walmart Health clinics, citing a lack of profitability. It also shut down its virtual care business.
Walmart has shifted its healthcare strategy to focus on operating a digital healthcare marketplace, which plays to the company's existing physical and retail assets without having to deliver the clinical care itself.
Walmart aims to bring a retail-like experience to healthcare.
"Just like we give our customers walking into our store the choice of bananas and strawberries and apples, we are giving them that same choice when it comes to healthcare. We're really good at retail. We understand what customers want. We're really good at understanding how to merchandise that, and we think these same principles can absolutely apply to healthcare, which traditionally has not done that," Deegan said.
Walmart’s bigger advantage may be at the fulfillment end of the healthcare journey, allowing customers to move from receiving care to filling prescriptions and potentially combining prescriptions, groceries and other health products for same-day delivery, Fletcher noted.
General Medicine plays two roles in Walmart’s Better Care Services: it provides the underlying technology that powers the marketplace and is also one of the care providers consumers can choose. Walmart determines which providers participate, and General Medicine appears only in the categories where it offers care.
The company spent six months making its technology "multi-tenant," allowing its healthcare store infrastructure to power experiences beyond General Medicine's own platform. "Given the breadth of selection that Walmart has, we're excited about, moving forward, all the opportunities to integrate this experience with the broader Walmart ecosystem," Parker said.
The Walmart partnership could serve as a model for General Medicine to power healthcare marketplaces for other organizations. Parker said the company is exploring similar partnerships.
"The infrastructure has been built in a way that it could be extensible to other types of entities," he said, citing opportunities to work with health systems, manufacturers and payers.