Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, speaks on the ceremonial ribbon cutting prior to tomorrow’s opening night for the NHL’s newest hockey franchise the Seattle Kraken on the Climate Pledge Arena on October 22, 2021, in Seattle.
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Amazon is expanding its healthcare offerings following its deal to purchase One Medical, this time by opening a latest virtual care option to assist with common conditions like allergies, pimples and hair loss.
Amazon Clinic, unveiled on Tuesday, will allow patients in 32 states to message clinicians through a secure portal to hunt personalized treatments and prescriptions for common conditions. Patients can seek contraception options and look after urinary tract infections, dandruff, migraines and more.
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The service doesn’t yet accept insurance, but customers can use insurance to assist pay for medications prescribed by a licensed clinician through the platform. The corporate said those prescriptions could also be filled by any pharmacy but added that Amazon Pharmacy would even be an option.
To make use of the service, customers select the condition they’re considering speaking about after which select a preferred provider. After completing a questionnaire, they’ll connect with a clinician in a secure messaging portal to reply at the client’s convenience. Amazon said if a condition is not suitable to be treated through the service, it can let customers know that before they connect with a provider.
Two weeks of follow-up messages are included with the fee of the initial consultation, which Amazon said in “many cases” can be equal to or lower than the fee of the common copay. Customers can even use money from flexible spending accounts and healthcare spending accounts to pay for the service.
The brand new program comes just a couple of months after Amazon announced it was shutting down Amazon Care, a unique telehealth service, by the tip of the 12 months. That program, which launched in 2019 as a pilot for workers, provided virtual urgent care and offered in-home visits from nurses for a fee to perform testing and vaccinations.
Amazon Health Services lead Neil Lindsay said in an email announcing the shutdown that Amazon Care was “not a whole enough offering for the massive enterprise customers now we have been targeting, and wasn’t going to work long-term.”
Amazon’s healthcare ventures have raised concern amongst some regulators and lawmakers about how it can use and protect sensitive information. The corporate said in its Amazon Clinic announcement that it has “stringent customer privacy policies and comply with HIPAA and all other applicable laws and regulations.”
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