Amazon's Foray into Healthcare: What’s the Real Deal?
Amazon's venture into healthcare promises affordability and accessibility with its $9 per month or $99 per year membership, but a deeper look reveals a different reality. Despite the enticing offer of online scheduling, secure messaging, and care anytime and anywhere, the membership fee doesn't cover the actual medical care, and in-person care is only available in some places. Patients will face additional costs, insurance co-pays, and deductibles for remote or in-office visits, which can be out-of-network and limited to certain cities. Amazon's model lacks the personalized touch of traditional care that your own Direct Primary Care physician can offer. Ultimately, it's just another corporate takeover of healthcare that prioritizes the survival of the company and shareholder profit over patient care.
Subscribe to our newsletter
Popular posts
What's the deal with Amazon? Aptly named, it is swallowing almost every industry. First, it was merchandise, then supermarkets, cloud services, and pharmacy services. Now, it's taking over primary care medicine, hoping to make it more accessible and marketing it as though it'll cost you as little as nine dollars a month. Allow me to pull back the curtain to show you the reality.
What do you actually get for nine dollars a month or $99 a year (plus the cost of the required Prime membership)? You get online scheduling, online refill requests, secure messaging with "a provider," assistance navigating insurance and billing, and help with specialist booking and referral management. This is reminiscent of Concierge Medicine, yet your concierge is a large corporation and a bunch of digital tools instead of your personal doctor. There is nothing personal about that.
They tell you only in the footnotes that the "Treat me Now" and "Urgent Video Chat" options are merely triage tools where an app or a random provider will assess you and direct you to their in-office clinics or telehealth services, if needed, for a billable event.
Insurance is not required for treatment, but you or your insurance will be charged the full cost of each remote or in-office visit, and your insurance will assign you a co-pay and/or deductible as per their plan rules.
Said another way, your $9 per month or $99 per year Amazon annual membership does not cover actual medical care. You, or your insurance, will be billed the cost of the care. If you use your insurance, you will be on the hook for insurance co-payments, deductibles, out-of-pocket expenses, and all the attendant hassles that come with insurance plans, especially those of the HMO type.
Amazon tells you that you can see a One Medical primary care provider in any available city across the country; however, again, you will pay out-of-pocket for the visit which, not being in your home state, will likely be out-of-network with your insurance plan.
Available cities are limited. In Massachusetts, for example, their clinics are concentrated only in the Boston area, except for one additional clinic for seniors in Hyannis.
Amazon does sell one-time digital or video visits for a low fee without membership, but this is not comprehensive or preventative care and is limited to 30+ common medical problems.
While Amazon may be able to harness technology, provide fancy digital tools, and make an effort to provide continuity of care by connecting you with an in-person One Medical practice, the reality is that these practices operate exactly like insurance-based practices and must make their money on volume. While they attempt to connect you with your PCP each time, you may be assigned to another provider and suffer short or hurried visits. After-hours, telehealth especially, will be covered by someone who does not know you. Digital tools and sharing a common electronic medical record do not solve that problem.
Another important fact is found deep in the terms of service of each company involved in Amazon's motley collection of corporations. They are numerous! Read them carefully. You will find that you must agree to arbitration unless you opt out in writing within the first 30 days of membership. That means you waive your right to a trial by jury and any right to bring or participate in any class action suits. This is true for Amazon's services and the medical services provided by One Medical.
Corporations have taken up an identity and life of their own. They exist only to continue to exist and to serve their shareholders. Their only goal is the survival of their company. The patient is lost in all of this. Corporate America is not the answer.
Physicians nationwide are finally leaving large corporate and hospital groups to build solo and small practices again to restore the doctor-patient relationship. Direct Primary Care practices, where long-term relationships and personalized care provided by a single physician caring for a manageable number of patients, available 24/7, for low monthly fees, with no hidden costs and taking full accountability are the solution.
Dr. Tatiana Hamawi owns Alpha-Omega Direct Primary Care, LLC. Accepting new patients. Visit www.aomedical.com for more details.
Chat GPT used only to generate summary and title. Grammarly.com used for editing. Photo created by AI on Canva.com.
