8 ms·
Amazon launches Amazon Care, a virtual medical clinic for employees
- decebalus1 7y agoThe naming is horrible, because 'Amazon Care' is an oxymoron (sorry, couldn't help it). This is crap. It's basically streamlined McMedicine. Any ailment which steps out of the ordinary will be deferred or ignored. This is vaporware. Its goal is to save Bezos money for employee health insurance and using it's gimmicks to advertise it as a 'benefit' > Health care represents a $3.5 trillion sector for Amazon This is the problem right here. As long as medical care is a business, it's gonna be run like a business and trust me, you don't want Amazon running anything medical for you.
- patch_cable 7y ago> Any ailment which steps out of the ordinary will be deferred or ignored. Why would that be more true for this service than any other provider?
- Aeolun 7y agoIt may be true for every other provider, but does that mean it isn’t still a problem?
- jhall1468 7y agoI'd assume because this was an attack specifically on Amazon Care when that is an industry-wide problem. It's the equivalent to ranting about how bad a tv show was because it has commercials.
- healthscam 7y agoWhat's your solution non-profits, how well are those working for you now? If anything the utter bureaucracy and malfeasance under guise of charity has destroyed countless American lives with bizarre practices such as surprise billing, preferential rates. If anything there is a need for vertical integration in healthcare, to save it from disaster that is pharma/insurance/hospitals. Healthcare is as toxic as Taxi industry pre Uber and if it takes Amazon or Apple similar what Uber/Lyft did to destroy the current state so be it. it will still be a net positive.
- wind0w 7y agoHealthcare should be publicly run. It should not be a business. It is toxic because it is a business.
- skyyler 7y agoHow would vertical integration benefit the patient? Why should healthcare be provided by your employer, and not your government?
- decebalus1 7y agoProud to see someone making an account to respond to my comment. My solution is government-run single payer health insurance, separated from employers. It doesn't need 'disruption' or 'innovation' or any other Silicon Valley band-aid. It just needs to drop the cancerous insurers from the market completely and separate profits from healthcare.
- nullandvoid 7y agoI find this opinion that healthcare should be for-profit mind blowing. The whole non-profit approach is working great for us in the UK ( from a citizen perspective at least )
- aurizon 7y agoI do not agree with decebalus1. Many ilnesses start small, and people shrug them off and do not seek a doctor. I expect this will interview each person, get their temperature, blood pressre and others- via labs. This is a good anonymous machine interview process by an AI following a tree
- decebalus1 7y ago> This is a good anonymous machine interview process by an AI following a tree Needs a bit more blockchain and webscale. I mean, it's an implementation detail but I'd put the individual test results on some Kafka topics and then have a worker to commit these to a blockchain for durability. Solving the real problems here..
- facethrowaway 7y ago> Employees will have an option to see a health provider via a mobile app or website, and they can text a nurse on any health topic in minutes. If an employee needs follow-up care, Amazon Care can arrange for a nurse to pay a visit at home. Have fun trying to get hold of an actual doctor. I understand that nurses are more than capable of handling lots of issues, but I doubt Amazon will publish a breakdown of the doctor:nurse ratio for this initiative.
- 0xDEFC0DE 7y agoNurse Practitioners can handle a good bit of every day things. If that's who shows up, the article is being disingenuous.
- giancarlostoro 7y agoI came here to say that Nurse Practitioners are the ones who can do perscriptions. Not regular Registered Nurses. For anybody who might not already know. And correct it is only a doctor who can prescribe certain types of medications, likely stronger medications.
- TylerE 7y agoIt actually depends on the state. The amount of power a NP varies quite a bit.
- txgxyxdkssppg 7y agoAmazon employee here that used this service or it's immediate predecessor. It's just a branded third party teledoc service for internal employees. I described very clearly that I needed a refill of a common non-scheduled medication. They took my credit card info and charged me $50, transferred me to the NP who immediately told me they could not prescribe it. A waste of time and money. I went to the NP at the local CVS MinuteClinuc and had the bottle of pills in 30 minutes.
- andrei_says_ 7y agoSo, another way to extract money from people who actually need medical services?
- Consultant32452 7y agoMore like a way to extract less money from people who need medical services.
- andrei_says_ 7y agoFrom the experience of the parent post, it looks like a more streamlined way to extract money without providing a legitimate service.
- Consultant32452 7y agoNot every case of bad customer service is a conspiracy to extract more money from you.
- andrei_says_ 7y agoI agree, I am a bit suspicious and skeptical toward big corporations and for-profit healthcare. Maybe taking someone's money without providing a service is a one-in-a-million case. It is still encoded in workflows and software, and no easy way to get a refund. So, instutionalized.
- dangus 7y agoSo far, the comments here are seriously misunderstanding what Amazon is doing here, and are getting unnecessarily inflammatory just because it’s Big Bad Amazon. It’s just a remote care benefit. My current employer offers it, administered by a vendor, and it’s separate from your actual insurance. You can call or video chat, send pictures, and even get prescriptions filled off-hours. It comes in handy for a lot of common quick scenarios. The only news is that Amazon is big enough to self administer it. It’s pretty much inevitable that companies of that immense size save money by self-administering or self-insuring many benefits like this.
- chiefalchemist 7y ago> "The only news is that Amazon is big enough to self administer it." But now there's no protective layer between the employee, their personal data trail and the employer. I would suspect that for some diseases / consitions this situation is going to discourage employees to seek care.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tempsy 7y agoI don’t think anyone is disagreeing with you. The “inflammatory” comments reach the same conclusion, that telemedicine is a cost saving tactic to save money, which is true. I think this just serve as another reason why employer-based healthcare insurance is a weird anomaly that should be done away with. If you work at a large company then your health plan will almost certainly be self-insured, and now not only are you a worker for said company you’re now this risk that is being watched and managed by your company that knows every healthcare interaction you have. It’s creepy.
- xeromal 7y agoIf you read comments on reddit and hackernews, a lot of people seem dead set on avoiding social contact when possible. The service solves that problem somewhat. You don't have to leave home or work to get treated, so in a way, this might encourage people to take care of themselves more.
- beager 7y agoWhite-labeling telemedicine benefits could be a novel retention play for companies, but I think that only works if: a. the benefit is obviously superior (better care than you'd get from a PCP or national telemedicine brand like Teladoc) and/or b. the benefit is emulsified with covered perks like gym memberships, wellness programming, etc. It's interesting that this is a story though. It's either a recruiting tactic or they're floating it as something they might sell outwardly later. It's also potentially a way to control coverage costs for employees.
- olefoo 7y agoNeofeudalism intensifies.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- disabled 7y agoAs somebody with complex health problems: These sort of telemedicine/urgent care arrangements, where one visits with a random nurse practitioner or doctor, without near complete access to your medical record and without proper follow up, can be disastrous. I am not blaming Amazon for anything. I am pointing out that your health problems need to be followed up, with your general practitioner (GP), if you have to visit an urgent care, even if you are "healthy". In many cases, all you really need to do is have the urgent care medical records transferred to your GP--and confirm that the GP office got them. Considering that the third leading cause of death in the US is preventable medical errors [1], complete and accurate health records are important. In fact, this was how I was properly diagnosed with a very rare disease. I am now in remission and I get a second chance to live my life. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/05/03/476636183/death-certificates-undercount-toll-of-medical-errors https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/05/03/4766361...
- colek42 7y agoFor someone like me who gets really bad poison ivy about once every 2 years these appointments are amazing. I get to tell the doctor exactly what is wrong with me and what protocol works best. I don't have to miss work (remote) and it only costs me 30 min of time. If these types of visits are not right for your situation don't use them.
- disabled 7y agoI agree with you 100%. But it is still very important that your GP gets the records from the service, and to use a service that can do this.
- erikpukinskis 7y agoI love that Amazon is moving in this direction. Employer-provided health insurance is a total racket. I would love to see Medicare-for-all in the US, and support that. But we also need a plan B. But how do you break a racket? You can’t just built a startup, because the market is fucked: everyone with money already gets care for free. Most of the people who need care are broke. And there are so many layers of indirection: patient -> employer -> insurer -> provider.... that you’re not just dealing with a single racket, you have layers of protectorates that are milking people at every stage. Plus there’s the scale issue, with a pool of 100 patient-customers, a few bad years can sink your startup. Yes you can buy specialty insurance, but it would need to be a very complex product and you need scale to make that appealing to an underwriter. Which brings me to why I am excited about Amazon trying this: A big employer seems like the only party other than the state who can break the racket. Amazon is more or less bearing the full cost of their employees care, and they have the scale to act as their own insurer. They also have the software and data science teeth needed to build the backoffice. Medicare for all is what we need, but I support Amazon because I believe in the diversity of tactics.
- eeZah7Ux 7y agoThat's pure dystopia.