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Amazon continues its entry into healthcare with a new telemedicine platform; the aptly named Amazon Clinic.
The service comes just four months after the tech giant announced it was buying a healthcare company One Medical for a whopping $3.9 billion. Through this partnership Amazon Clinic (opens in new tab) will provide digital health services and direct access to company doctors for 23 “common health conditions”, including allergies, hair loss and migraines.
Amazon Clinic is not intended to take over from a primary physician, nor will it treat more serious conditions. The purpose of the platform is to help people with conditions that require private care but can be easily addressed over the internet. For more complex scenarios, clinicians will advise you to get personalized care.
According to the announcement, only 32 states will have access to Amazon Care, but there are plans to expand to all 50. The 18 states that do not have Amazon Care are Arizona, Delaware, Mississippi, New York, and West Virginia.
How it works
For help, first go to the Amazon Clinic homepage (opens in new tab) and select something like “seasonal allergy”, for example. From there, choose the state where you live (assuming the service is available to you) and select an online clinic. You answer a few questions about what you’re going through, the information is reviewed, and a doctor gets back to you within a few hours. There is no subscription fee to use the Amazon Clinic website, but you must pay the clinicians themselves.
Insurance is not supported by the service; although you can pay through an FSA (Flexible Spending Account) or HSA (Health Savings Account). The reimbursements you pay also do not include the costs of medicines; that’s additional. Amazon has plans to accept insurance sometime in the future, according to the announcement.
Consultations are all done “through a secure message-based portal, give [you] the flexibility to message [your] clinician” whenever you want. There are no video calls or live chats. From the portal, the healthcare provider sends a “personalized treatment plan…including any necessary prescriptions…” which can be filled at your local pharmacy. You are not forced to use Amazon pharmacy (opens in new tab) but using it is definitely an option.
Amazon Clinic also offers prescription renewals, although the selection is more limited. It only covers five types of prescriptions, including asthma and high blood pressure medications. But the process is still the same: answer a few questions and you’ll get an answer hours later.
We asked Amazon if there are any plans for a global expansion and if video calls are supported. This story will be updated if we hear anything.
Changing landscape
The first question that probably comes to everyone’s mind is “is this platform safe?” The company states that Amazon Clinic “will comply with HIPAA and all other applicable laws and regulations” to ensure user data is kept secure. Plus, this isn’t Amazon’s first healthcare rodeo.
For this, Amazon Care helped businesses provide care allowance to their employees. That, however service will go offline on December 31 (opens in new tab) because it was too limited for the company. It will be interesting to see how impact Amazon Clinic will have. Providing fast virtual health services could help personal care by reducing the burden and providing short waiting times.
If you’re interested in other forms of remote care, read TechRadar’s list of the best telemedicine software for 2022.