Amazon is one of healthcare's biggest disruptors and one of the biggest players in the race to acquire physicians.
Here are 13 moves Amazon has made in 2024:
1. Amazon's primary care clinic One Medical is facing allegations it provided guidelines for their employees to use when discussing situations when their call center did not appropriately escalate urgent calls to medical staff.
2. Amazon Clinic, Amazon's virtual care platform, rebranded to Amazon One Medical Pay-per-visit.
3. Medicare beneficiaries can now enroll in Amazon Pharmacy's RxPass medication prescription service, an Amazon Prime member benefit that offers access to dozens of commonly prescribed medications for $5 a month.
4. Amazon opened its first pharmacy in California.
5. Amazon Clinic General Manager Nworah Ayogu, MD, is leaving the company to join Thrive Capital.
6. Sacramento, Calif.-based UC Davis Health and Amazon are using generative artificial intelligence to counter health misinformation.
7. Amazon Pharmacy is now offering same-day prescription medicine deliveries for customers in New York City and Los Angeles, with plans to expand to more than a dozen cities by the end of the year.
8. Eli Lilly tapped Amazon Pharmacy as a partner to deliver select medications including weight loss drugs directly to consumers' homes.
9. Amazon's Alexa integrated a telehealth and virtual healthcare delivery platform by Hellocare into its software, allowing patients to make calls and seek medical assistance from physicians and nurses through the use of their voice.
10. Amazon announced in February its is planning to close some corporate One Medical offices, as well as move its chief financial officer into a new role.
11. Amazon is eliminating a few hundred roles at One Medical and in its online pharmacy unit Amazon Pharmacy, Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of Amazon Health Services, confirmed to Becker's in February.
12. Amazon Pharmacy is integrating with One Medical to give patients and providers increased access to medication consultations.
13. Amazon launched digital health monitoring services through a partnership with Omada Health. Omada's more than 20 million members are eligible to enroll in the service through Amazon.