| Discount retail giant Dollar General announced late last week that it will end its mobile health clinic pilot program, run in partnership with mobile medical care provider DocGo. Launched in Jan. 2023, the mobile clinics provided basic healthcare services—including annual physicals, vaccinations, urgent care, and lab testing services—several days per week outside three Dollar General stores near the company’s Goodlettsville, Tennessee headquarters. A Dollar General spokesperson said that ending the mobile clinics program was a mutual decision between Dollar General and DocGo and did not provide additional details on the decision. |
| The Gist: Dollar General’s small healthcare delivery pilot received significant attention when it was announced, due to the retailer’s extensive footprint in rural and medically underserved areas. Although the discount retailer never touted a healthcare strategy on the scale of Walmart or Walgreens, which have each also walked back their healthcare delivery ambitions this year, Dollar General did hire a chief medical officer in 2021, and many thought that this pilot could be the company’s first step toward broader healthcare delivery. Instead, Dollar General’s role in improving the health of rural Americans for now remains limited to its retail offerings: it continues to expand its DG Fresh initiative, now selling fresh produce at more than a quarter of its 20K locations, and its DG Wellbeing section, which now accepts supplemental health benefits for its selection of more than 300 over-the-counter medicines and supplements. |
HENRY KOTULA 