Wal-Mart To Offer Certain Surgeries At No Cost To Employees

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is offering its U.S. employees and their families free heart and spine surgeries at six major health centers at no cost to the retailer's workers, as it tries to find better ways to cover costly, complicated procedures.

Starting in January, workers and dependents enrolled in Wal-Mart's medical plans will receive free consultations and care for certain heart and spinal procedures along with travel, lodging and food for the patient and a caregiver.

The six healthcare organizations include those that have won high marks in terms of patient care and keeping unnecessary costs at bay: Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio; Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pennsylvania; Mayo Clinic sites in Minnesota, Arizona and Florida; Mercy Hospital Springfield in Springfield, Missouri; Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple, Texas; and Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, Washington.

Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer and the single biggest U.S. employer outside of the government, with about 1.4 million workers. Any changes to its healthcare coverage can have a ripple effect. The company shook up a different part of the healthcare industry when its Walmart chain started selling certain prescription medications for $4 back in 2006, a move soon followed by other retailers.

Wal-Mart anticipates that the program will help reduce its costs as it receives bundled pricing from the healthcare organizations, and has labeled them "Centers of Excellence," but it cannot project the amount it might save.

Wal-Mart says that it pays about 60 percent of total cost of healthcare for employees on its healthcare plans, including out-of-pocket and premium expenses. For workers, including those with low-paying jobs, costs will now be reduced as they will no longer incur any expenses for these procedures.