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I work in the healthcare space - (I am no expert on how to fix it), but my two cents is there is so much inefficiency right now across the board that is just cr
by ejb999 4y ago
I work in the healthcare space - (I am no expert on how to fix it), but my two cents is there is so much inefficiency right now across the board that is just crying out for automation and complete revamp in how services are provided - which I suspect amazon could improve - if I had to guess though, where they are going to run into problems is if/when they start treating providers (MDs, NPs, PAs) like interchangeable widgets, that many will not want to work for amazon and will head for the exit - unless the pay is much better than they can get elsewhere.
- decafninja 4y agoI use a rival service of One Medical provided by my employer. It’s…amazing. It’s not perfect, but it removes so much of the hassle involved in going through the “legacy” medical system, at least for routine and minor things. My understanding is that these are “concierge lite” services, and full blown concierge medicine services like MD2 are a whole magnitude even better. Albeit at the cost of paying five figure annual membership fees.
- SmellTheGlove 4y agoWhat service is that? My family uses one medical and we’ve become pretty unhappy with it over the past year. I’d be happy to try something else.
- nerdjon 4y agoI don't know for sure how One Medical works. But I use Forward personally, it seems like the idea is they don't have to deal with that stuff. They don't use my insurance for all of my basic care. Anything not basic is a referral out, but then we are dealing with the normal medical system at that point. So I do totally see the inefficiencies from an outside prospective. I just am struggling to see the benefit to Amazon for this particular purchase. It feels like a market that will be unprofitable for a long time if they are trying to make a system that doesn't work like it normally does.
- CSMastermind 4y ago> where they are going to run into problems is if/when they start treating providers (MDs, NPs, PAs) like interchangeable widgets, that many will not want to work for amazon and will head for the exit - unless the pay is much better than they can get elsewhere. To be fair this is what they do with software engineers and their ever-lowering hiring bar aside, they're still managing to get people.
- ejb999 4y ago>>To be fair this is what they do with software engineers and their ever-lowering hiring bar aside, they're still managing to get people. True, but most people don't care who writes their software, as long as it works, whereas most/many people really prefer to have a relationship with their provider, not see a different person every time they come in. Maybe thats more of an older generation problem, and perhaps younger people will just need to have a different mindset and won't care as much.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoThat is already how it works in many areas where many providers have been brought under one roof. For example, a pediatric group my kids go to has a designated pediatrician, but in the event of an acute illness, you get to see whichever pediatrician is available. For my wife and I, we signed up with a primary care physician that is employed by the same company that owns the hospital we want to go to. They employ all sorts of doctors and labs and can easily see medical records between them. We also chose our pediatrician group because they use Epic and integrate with hospital which also uses Epic and so medical records for the whole family are instantly available for all doctors at the hospital in case of emergency. When one of my kids has some blood in stool as an infant, and we had to go see a pediatric GI specialist, we could go see one employed by the same company at a special children’s hospital, and they had east access to all of the same records my kid’s pediatrician was seeing. And, of course, because the whole healthcare provider company that operates the hospital and employs the doctors is covered by BCBS, we do not have to worry about checking for out of network providers.
- bick_nyers 4y agoA challenging part is having automation while also having proper processes, risk management, and documentation. They tend to be opposing forces, where to do one well the other is usually sacrificed.
- 1986 4y agoIsn't One Medical's entire business model / pitch to consumers predicated on the fungibility of providers, though? i.e. you can almost always see a OM provider on pretty short notice, it's just not guaranteed to be the same provider you saw last time