Sam's Club has joined the OTC Network®, the InComm Payments-managed merchant community that processes supplemental health benefit funds, opening another high-volume retail channel for members of participating Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, and other benefit programs to spend plan-sponsored dollars on groceries, over-the-counter medications, and wellness products.
Who Benefits
Health plan members who carry InComm Healthcare's Dual Network Benefit Card™ — a single card that can consolidate multiple benefit and rewards programs — can now use their plan-approved funds at physical Sam's Club locations across the United States. The arrangement does not extend to Sam's Club Scan & Go mobile transactions; eligible purchases must be completed at in-club registers. Benefits remain configured to each plan's specific eligibility rules, so funds flow only toward approved product categories.
For grocery and foodservice operators tracking where supplemental benefit dollars are being spent, the move signals continued expansion of big-box and warehouse-format retailers into a payment ecosystem once dominated by pharmacy chains. The OTC Network already spans more than 85,000 retail locations nationwide — covering grocery, pharmacy, mass merchandise, and big-box formats — and processes billions of dollars in supplemental benefit funds annually. It also connects to more than 300,000 service-provider locations including dental care providers.
Operator Implications
"Health plans are focused on making benefits and rewards as accessible and frictionless as possible for their members," said Joe Donato, Senior Vice President and General Manager at InComm Healthcare. "Welcoming Sam's Club to our OTC Network® helps extend that access at scale, giving members additional flexibility to use their benefits at a retailer they know and trust."
For food retailers and hospitality-adjacent businesses watching the supplemental benefits space, the Sam's Club addition underscores a broader industry shift: health plans are actively expanding the merchant footprint where members can redeem restricted-spend funds, putting pressure on competing grocery and foodservice formats to pursue similar network integrations. Operators interested in capturing Medicare Advantage and Medicaid benefit spending would be well-served to evaluate OTC Network eligibility, particularly as the senior consumer segment grows.
The development also reflects the increasing role that payments infrastructure plays in determining where health-conscious consumers shop for food and wellness products — a dynamic increasingly relevant to restaurant and foodservice operators exploring health-focused positioning. As supplemental benefit programs broaden their eligible product categories, the intersection of healthcare payments and everyday food retail continues to deepen, a trend tracked closely in beverage and functional food industry analysis.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
