Excerpt – Amazon will stop offering its Amazon Care primary health-care services at the end of this year, according to an internal memo, after determining that it wasn’t “the right long-term solution for our enterprise customers.”
The surprise move Wednesday is a major course correction in Amazon’s broader foray into healthcare. Amazon says the decision impacts only Amazon Care, and not its other health-care initiatives.
“This decision wasn’t made lightly and only became clear after many months of careful consideration,” said Neil Lindsay, Amazon Health Services senior vice president, in the email to Amazon Health Services employees. “Although our enrolled members have loved many aspects of Amazon Care, it is not a complete enough offering for the large enterprise customers we have been targeting, and wasn’t going to work long-term.”
Amazon says company leaders determined that the Amazon Care business model wasn’t working prior to, and independent from, its agreement to acquire primary care company One Medical for $3.9 billion, which was announced July 21. That acquisition is still expected to move ahead, pending regulatory approval. [..]
Amazon Care launched in 2019 as a pilot program for employees in the Seattle area, where Amazon is headquartered. Last year it expanded to non-Amazon employees across the nation.
It is a hybrid of virtual, in-home primary care and urgent care services, without brick-and-mortar clinics or physical locations. [..]
A recent analysis from Trilliant Health shows that telehealth demand declined nearly 60% from April 2020 to April 2022, “suggesting that expanded availability of virtual care options has not shifted widespread consumer preferences.”
Full article, T Bishop and T Soper, GeekWire, 2022.8.24