Amazon is buying healthcare providers One Medical for $3.9 billion. Not heard of One Medical? Its membership-based service includes an app, 24/7 access to on-demand telehealth services over video, and guaranteed same- or next-day appointments available through more than 125 offices.
Why do we care?
Amazon is moving further into healthcare. This certainly isn’t their first – they bought PillPack in 2018 and Health Navigator to make Amazon Care a primary care service.
Why? They need markets that can feed their growth requirements, and there aren’t many left. This isn’t expected to get blocked by regulators, so expect this to happen. I’m all for disruption in healthcare – it’s a bloated, wasteful industry ready for a change.
But the downside here will be those providers serving the space. It won’t happen instantly… but consider the future scenario where a doctor is offered a complete package of services from Amazon to deliver their services, be paid, and cut out the hassles of both insurance AND technology? There will be many healthcare providers who consider that.
If you’re in tech in healthcare, you should care an awful lot.