retail Archives - Recon Strategy

Walmart Health didn’t test the opportunity in rural underserved markets

Harry Sultan and Tory Wolff June 20, 2024

What lessons can be drawn from Walmart’s precipitous shut down of its attempt to launch primary care, dental and behavioral health services? The Walmart Health management team (after some mid-stream ‘dialing in’) was composed of savvy healthcare insiders; the team could tap into learnings from Walmart’s four prior attempts to launch clinics inside supercenters; and Walmart invested quite a bit of money in the effort. Collectively, however, these assets were not enough for success. We think Walmart Health’s key mistake was to target markets with high disposable income, which, unfortunately

Amazon becomes a shopping facilitator for healthcare services (finally…)

Tory Wolff November 20, 2022

Back in 2018, I offered a speculation about what Amazon might do in healthcare as part of its now defunct joint venture with JPMorgan and Berkshire Hathaway. The focus was on doing what Amazon is remarkably good at: creating simple, consumer-friendly, transparent and highly liquid markets. Here was my suggested Step 1: “[T]here are several classes of healthcare that many patients are ready to shop for (and payers have been trying to get them to shop for): minor acute care (sniffles and coughs to simple fractures), basic diagnostic

Can convenience care be a platform for an insurance product?

Tory Wolff September 21, 2015

Summary A Portland-based urgent care operator is launching a health plan from scratch The strategy targets the busy and healthy with the convenience of a retail network providing “store brand care”; a simple, consumer oriented service model at low cost. Carving out this segment can plausibly allow for sustained advantage in admin, medical cost and revenue management. The plan has hit a speed bump with regulators on pricing, so evidence of this model’s market appeal will come slowly. Convenience care has historically played nice with the ecosystem, but Oscar’s explosive

Shifting lines in the mobile health competitive battlefield: Aetna makes a strategic retreat while United digs in?

Tory Wolff November 24, 2014

The battle to own healthcare’s consumer relationship is being nowhere fought more intensely than in the mobile arena. Tea leaves suggest that Aetna has pulled back from trying to own this relationship in favor of a more collaborative “ecosystem” strategy, but United appears determined to lead. The thinking is speculative but I let me point out the emerging evidence and offer some guesses on what will come next. Strategy environment for consumer mobile health At the risk of oversimplification, let me offer six hypotheses regarding the strategic context for consumer

Boeing’s model for creating product-based competition among providers

Tory Wolff September 4, 2014

Summary Boeing is creating a benefit design model which sets up providers to compete for their book of lives via provider-branded narrow networks By offering a choice among competing narrow and full network products, the model may make narrow networks more palatable for employees Narrow networks can produce a volume windfall for providers (e.g., share gain, leakage reduction) and profits from better care management and a risk deal Providers “pay” for the narrow network opportunity by being lower cost (often via incremental discounts) in hopes that these gains outweigh cannibalization

Big box retail as health insurance channel: thoughts on the Aetna-Costco deal

Tory Wolff April 27, 2012

Summary Aetna has struck a deal to sell individual health insurance with Costco, the #6 retailer. The deal targets 9 populous states first with more to follow in 2012 While the deal lacks some of the levers of the very successful Walmart-Humana Part D deal, there is real potential for this channel to attract consumers if employers opt-out on a large scale Given that Aetna has some arrangements with Best Buy (the #9 retailer) and an established alliance with CVS (the #7 retailer), it looks like Aetna is building out

Aetna and Best Buy: a new twist on retail in healthcare

Tory Wolff January 12, 2012

Aetna has struck a deal with Best Buy to sell four online coaching programs (fitness, weight management, smoking cessation and stress management) in new 1,200 sq. ft. “health technology departments” in 3 suburban Chicago locations. In these departments, Best Buy is selling a broad range of technologies and tools for fitness, sleep, nutrition and beauty alongside the Aetna programs. The strategy: target Best Buy’s tech savvy customers when they are thinking about health and when they have an expectation to buy (vs. for example being on-line when there is more

Tag: retail

Recon takes an analytical look behind select developments in healthcare

Walmart Health didn’t test the opportunity in rural underserved markets

Amazon becomes a shopping facilitator for healthcare services (finally…)

Can convenience care be a platform for an insurance product?

Shifting lines in the mobile health competitive battlefield: Aetna makes a strategic retreat while United digs in?

Boeing’s model for creating product-based competition among providers

Big box retail as health insurance channel: thoughts on the Aetna-Costco deal

Aetna and Best Buy: a new twist on retail in healthcare

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