One Medical

[lake]

A letter from Amazon’s CEO

Amazon welcomes One Medical

Dear Customers,

Today, getting great health care is often too difficult and inconvenient. Typically, you have to find a doctor, make an appointment a few weeks in advance, and drive 15-20 minutes or longer to the doctor’s office. When you get there, you wait in the reception area for a while, get called by a nurse into an exam room, wait another 10-15 minutes or so, and eventually see a doctor for only a few minutes who often then prescribes a medication. Finally, you drive 20 minutes or more to the pharmacy and wait for the medication to be ready—all while you or a loved one you’re caring for aren’t feeling well. It’s a lot of work; and let’s face it, the system isn’t working for customers or clinicians.

At Amazon, we’re trying to improve the health care experience for customers. We started by building Amazon Pharmacy, with a broad selection of medications sent to you with reliable, free delivery. We then added RxPass, a new Prime benefit from Amazon Pharmacy, which for $5/month lets Prime members get as many medications as they need from a list of 60 medications frequently used to treat many common conditions—and shipping is free. We also recently launched Amazon Clinic, which offers a convenient, personalized, and affordable way to get medical advice and treatment for over 20 conditions (like migraines, allergies, sinusitis, and more) simply by messaging with a clinician—no appointments, no travel.

Today, we’re excited to announce that One Medical has joined Amazon and our mission to make it dramatically easier for customers to get what they need to stay healthy. With One Medical, customers can connect with clinicians 24/7 via video chat or messaging if that’s most convenient. Or, customers can choose to make an appointment same day or within days to visit any of One Medical’s offices in many U.S. cities. If you need a specialist, One Medical works closely with lots of hospital systems and can help you get a referral and an appointment quickly. One Medical works with most insurance providers, and while you can of course get your prescription filled anywhere that’s convenient for you, you can also choose to have it delivered to your door by Amazon Pharmacy. This is how primary care should work.

For a limited time, to celebrate One Medical joining Amazon, you can now join One Medical with a discounted annual membership of $144 for the first year (a 28% discount), the equivalent of $12 per month, for new U.S. customers.

We’re just at the beginning of what’s possible. Customers tell us there is a need to radically improve the health care experience, and we think we can help. At Amazon, together with One Medical, we’re determined to help make it easy for you to get the care, the medication, and other products and services you need to get and stay healthy.

Wishing you good health,

Andy Jassy
Amazon CEO

[lake]

Is anyone crazy or desperate enough to trust their health care to Amazon?

[Tried_Tested]

Actually I wouldn’t trust my healthcare on gp’s and specialists either. They make a lot of mistakes - trust yourself and learn to take care of your own health - it’s a tall order but anyone with half a brain can do it as long as they’re willing to read. Doctors and Insurance act as gateways to get what you want; simply a means to an end. This is welcoming tool and I hope it interrupts the shit out of the standard medical industry.

[lake]

I would not trust my healthcare to telemedicine.

My gp and most of the specialists I deal with are worthy of trust, but the organizations they work for are not, and telemedicine is a boon to the bureaucrats, and large organization grafters.

I worry about the practice my GP is in, It is large, it has a medical philosophy which guides its health care, and it was acquired by United Healthcare which has no philosophy and the heart of an insurance company.

[maintak]

Do doctors make mistakes? Yes. People are fallible, and our medical knowledge is incomplete. Well informed patients, second opinions… we do the best we can to catch mistakes. A well thought out overhaul of the medical industrial complex would help too, but we do what we can.

However. No amount of casual perusal of medical abstracts or anecdotal evidence from facebook groups will educate a layperson to the point where they can read research or clinical trial reports on various different treatments to decide which is actually best for them. Self education is all for the good but it doesn’t replace the analysis of a trained radiologist comparing a CAT scan to an MRI to try to figure out if you need surgery, which you also shouldn’t attempt yourself. This is assuming everyone is capable of self diagnosis in the first place, which I would contest.

Doctors act as gateways, yes. Insurance companies, not so much. But I wouldn’t trust “anyone with half a brain” over someone with decades of experience - with my life. There are bad doctors just like there are bad teachers and bad cooks and bad mail carriers and bad car mechanics. My time is better spent finding a good doctor than trying to reinvent the wheel all on my own, which I can’t have the time or resources to do anyway.

There are proven measures people can take to fortify our own health on a daily basis, and for the most part everyone knows about them and few people actually do them. But if anything goes wrong, as things inevitably do, people need doctors. Good doctors.

[Tried_Tested]

I’m not disagreeing with either of you.

But I’m sorry my experience has been entirely different and my sister is a doctor so I’m very well acquainted with doctors as well as the medical industry. If it weren’t for my autodidactic endeavors in health, I wouldn’t be where I am today. This is after talking with many specialists and smart doctors. Part of it has to do with the fact that doctors have to practice defensive medicine because of liability. I sympathize, but in the larger game (as in game theory) that also hinders potential health interventions which can optimize and even prolong my health.

Also a lot of ref ranges from physicians assistant or merck’s are based on a flawed premise. I’m not saying do away with doctors, I’m only saying that added pressures on pricing are important when it comes to supply and demand.

“half a brain” was hyperbole; It was more like “three-parts of four of a brain”

[lake]

I know the defensive medicine practices, and also know that my PCP cares about me. We discuss the all of the alternatives, and if necessary how we will avoid the dictates of his practice,

I have has the first two years of medical school, and a superb b.s. detector. I know which practices are owned by institutions which do not put the patient first and are run with what should be medical judgements be made by the administrators.

I know there are both for-profit and not for profit hospitals which do not necessarily do what is best for the patient.

Yes, you need to be aware of the conflicts of interest. You also need to be aware of the medical dogma which is currently practiced, and the limits of your insurance.

Every year when it is time for my annual physical, I need what tests are being ordered, and request other tests like the PSA test which medicare covers but my PCP’s practice no longer orders.

They participate in a trial program with Medicare which rewards them for doing less, but cannot refuse to do what medicare will pay for.

Sometimes, they decline to make a referral, and I need to go direct to a specialist, and my medigap plan does not require a referral for coverage. This keeps my PCP out of trouble with the administration, and I still get my care from a top name specialist.

I do not see any evidence of price pressures, just of cost control pressures and many are dictated outside the practice - like by Medicare,

Although our practice continues to offer telemedicine, it is declined by many. Although they make some use of PAs and NursePracts we can still insist on seeing a doctor and I do.

I have had mixed results from PAs and uniformly poor results with NursePracts.

[Tried_Tested]

I usually do most of the defining parameters with gps and specialists and tell them which markers I’m looking at and what concerns me and in turn tell them what protocol I want and to date have never been refused. I assume the same experience for many but I’m learning that’s just not the way most people operate.

Oh well.

[SawleMill]

Because, Amazon has done so many things wonderfully well and profitably lately…

I suppose that an internet bookseller, might be able to make a successful online clinic…

But I’ll giver heavy odds, it’s about as successful as the Fire Phone, Dash Buttons, Pets.com, and Amazon Destinations…

[lake]

Do not forget Fine Arts and Collectibles, Sports Collectibles, and Collectible Coins which have not been successes. Or the ever entertaining Diapers.com.