Amazon’s Leaked ‘Clinic’ Would Connect Patients to Telemedicine
Amazon may soon be launching a new healthcare offering, according to a leaked video. A video published Tuesday on the company’s YouTube page — and then quickly removed — described “Amazon Clinic,” an online health care program that would provide treatment for “common conditions” such as allergies and acne.
As described in the video, people were able to fill out a questionnaire about their symptoms and pay a fee. A doctor would review their answers and provide a diagnosis and prescriptions if needed. “Telehealth services are provided by groups of outside healthcare providers,” the video reads. The video directs people to amazon.com/clinic, a web page that is currently not live when published.
The video states that prescriptions are sent to ‘your pharmacy’. It’s not clear whether the program would lead people to Amazon Pharmacy, which is still struggling to take off, according to the report from Insider in August.
Amazon spokesperson Christina Smith declined to comment on the video and the program described.
The program described would be yet another healthcare hub for Amazon. Just a few months ago, the company announced it would be closing Amazon Care, its original telehealth service. That program started as a service for Amazon employees and then expanded as an offering for any company that wanted to offer it to its employees. Neil Lindsay, Amazon’s senior vice president of health, said in an email announcing the shutdown that it “isn’t comprehensive enough for the large enterprise customers we’ve been targeting.”
The move came after Amazon announced it was acquiring primary care provider One Medical. It’s not clear whether the groups of third-party healthcare providers described in the Amazon Clinic video would also include One Medical.
Tech companies are still figuring out how best to navigate the lucrative, yet messy, healthcare industry. Depending on the shape it eventually takes, this offering from Amazon Clinic could be a new angle on the problem: focusing on the customer experience, which the company is already good at, rather than trying to provide the care itself.
