The corporation Amazon continues to build out its healthcare offerings as it attempts to encroach on established healthcare providers. Last November they announced the launch of Amazon Clinic, which can be described succinctly as an online telemedicine marketplace. At the same time, Amazon has revamped and rebranded its Amazon Care concierge primary care service as Amazon One Medical (QH).
The concept of Amazon Clinic is to allow patients to consult with medical professionals on a variety of relatively minor but prevalent ailments such as sinusitis, acne, and migraines. Customers pick the health issue they need help with, opt for a healthcare provider, and then fill out a short survey. Based on their location, customers have the option to consult with a healthcare practitioner through video chat or text messaging.
One novel aspect is that no insurance is involved; instead customers pay flat fee. According to the website: "Each online clinic sets its own prices, and prices vary for each treatment. To compare prices, visit the condition page for the treatment you’re interested in." So the idea is to replicate the Amazon marketplace experience, but for routine healthcare.
Then in August, Amazon Clinic announced that video visit services were now accessible to users across all 50 states. However, due to regulatory constraints, the message-based chat feature on Amazon Clinic is limited to 34 states (CNBC). The current list of telemedicine providers include Curai Health, Hello Alpha, SteadyMD, and Wheel.
Although no insurance is required, customers have the option to apply their insurance for covering the costs of any medications prescribed via the platform. These prescriptions can be processed at any drugstore, as well as through Amazon's own internet pharmacy service that takes care of both filling and delivering the prescriptions. Thus, obtaining a prescription without going through your health insurance and primary care physician would be one use-case for Amazon Clinic.
Finally, one can compare Amazon Clinic to Amazon One Medical. The latter resembles a more traditional healthcare provider focused on primary care and extra services that would run through your health insurance. The former is more a walk-in, out-of-pocket healthcare service perhaps for those without healthcare insurance or wanting immediate attention without the usual bureaucracy (and waiting times, Figure 1).
Figure 1. The tagline for Amazon Clinic is "Healthcare is a message away."
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