6 ms·

This was definitely not on my Bingo card. I've been a customer of One Medical for a while. I really like the convenience and simplicity of booking in person ap

by s1mon 4y ago

This was definitely not on my Bingo card. I've been a customer of One Medical for a while. I really like the convenience and simplicity of booking in person appointments using an app on relatively short notice, and their video visits are often all you need for peace of mind or a simple prescription. I've also been a customer of Amazon for [checks order history, gulp] 24 years. I have a love/hate relationship with Amazon. I was also a customer of Whole Foods for many many years. When Amazon bought Whole Foods, it kinda stayed the same, but there are enough subtle differences that it's a bit like a Truman Show version of itself. We stopped shopping there. I hope I don't have to stop using One Medical. I'm not normally super paranoid about data privacy, but this doesn't feel good to me.

b112 4y ago
You can probably afford to pay for all medical costs, out of pocket, now that you stopped buying at Wholefoods...
- diogenescynic 4y ago
  I know it's a meme that WholeFoods is expensive, but I've actually found it pretty comparable in price to other local organic markets and co-ops. I think a decade ago it was definitely more exclusive, but now it's in the same ballpark--I actually find WholeFood's veggies, fruits, meat, and cheese are cheaper than my local co-op.
  - dmicah 4y ago
    Maybe it was just local competition, but in college a gallon of milk at Whole Foods was about $.25 cheaper than the Safeway across the street.
    - potatochup 4y ago
      Milk is a classic loss leader though. It's (intentionally) hard to compare overall prices between supermarkets
    - stevenwoo 4y ago
      The San Francisco Chronicle did an informal comparison (equivalent items where identical not available) shopping survey last year and found Whole Foods and Safeway neck and neck for most expensive groceries among major grocery stores in Bay Area.
  - stjohnswarts 4y ago
    Yeah, they can have decent prices especially if you're willing to move your eating choices around "what's on sale this week". Same with most expensive stores. I definitely do it with whole foods, sprouts, and central market. I love curb-side pickup :)
  - macNchz 4y ago
    It has been a few years since I regularly shopped at Whole Foods, but when I did my impression was that at least some of their reputation for high prices came from the fact that they had a wider range of minimum to maximum price in a given product category than a typical supermarket. I found their produce and "365" store brand items pretty comparable with other shops, but they also stocked high end versions of many things that you couldn't buy elsewhere, sometimes with eye-popping prices, so you'd have to be more selective about what you picked up off the shelf. Taking spices as a random example: a regular store might have own-brand cumin for like $0.75/oz and McCormick brand for $2.00/oz. Whole Foods store brand is likely somewhere in that range, but they'll also stock Morton & Bassett for like $4.00/oz, so if you're not careful you could pay 2-5x what you might have elsewhere.
- dominotw 4y ago
  No because their medical bills will be going up from not shopping at wholefoods.
- scoofy 4y ago
  ...more like wholepaycheck amirite are, are we really still doing this bit?
samstave 4y ago
>>I'm not normally super paranoid about data privacy, but this doesn't feel good to me. Well, the conspira-cynic in me notes that Amazon has a 10 Billion contract with the USG for various data housing for many intel/defense arms of the USG... So, theres that...
gaws 4y ago
> I hope I don't have to stop using One Medical. I'm not normally super paranoid about data privacy, but this doesn't feel good to me. Sounds like you should stop using One Medical.
__derek__ 4y ago
Amazon has been HIPAA-compliant for years at this point. Even Alexa has been since 2019.[1] [1]: https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/ff33dbc7-6cf5-4db8-b203-99144a251a21/introducing-new-alexa-healthcare-skills https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/ff33dbc7-6cf5-...
- Terretta 4y ago
  > Even Alexa has been [HIPAA-compliant] since 2019. And most major sites still allowing your PII to go to 100 direct third parties and 4000 indirect parties are GDPR compliant. Regulation compliant doesn’t mean what most people think it means.
  - api 4y ago
    Specifically it means that the company found a way to comply with the letter of the regulation, and that's it.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      What it actually really means is simply that Amazon is willing to sign a Business Associate Agreement with HIPAA covered entities for certain services, so that it is possible for the covered entity to use Amazon services while themselves meeting (one particular aspect of) HIPAA regulatory compliance. At least, that is what it seems to mean given that the support for the claim was a link to Amazon’s description of certain services as HIPAA-eligible, which is Amazon’s term for services they are willing to sign a BAA for.
  - __derek__ 4y ago
    Sorry, I didn't follow the connection to the quoted sentence. Can you explain?
  - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
    Compliant doesn't mean what people think it means or do you mean people don't know what the regulation says?
papito 4y ago
Amazon has been testing the waters and doing internal betas of something healthcare related for well over a year now. Scott Galloway called this a long time ago. Not really a shocker for Amazon watchers.
cactus2093 4y ago
I've been using One Medical for I think like 8 years now, at first I paid for it myself but the past few years it's been paid by my employer. In my experience they're still a bit more convenient than the average medical practice. At least I don't have to play phone tag to make an appointment, or have my appointment canceled because I was busy and couldn't answer a confirmation phone call. That just speaks to how terrible the average medical practice is at customer service. But I feel like One Medical has already started declining in quality and reverting to the mean of other providers. It's no longer easy to find an open time slot, I had to schedule my last physical a month and a half in advance. Last time I tried to do a teledoc session which is advertised as a 24/7 service, they happened to be closed all weekend (I'm not sure if that was a very unlucky one-time thing or how often that happens). Like with many other VC-funded companies, the early user-friendly imbalance of supply & demand was never going to be sustainable as they scaled up. What I have hated to see most, though, is how they have maneuvered their way into being yet another employer-funded health benefit. Now that it's "free" for me, my bar for service quality is much lower than it was when I was paying $100 a year. I already hate that medical insurance is employer funded in the US - the best solution would probably be a European-style government funded system, but the second best solution would just be to ban employer-sponsored health plans and let companies pay those amounts directly to employees to let them choose their own plan. Right now we have the worst of all worlds, it's not universal and it's not market driven either. And One Medical is now just the latest example of a similar kind of crony capitalism, which was true before Amazon bought them and I'm sure will continue being true now.
- sroussey 4y ago
  I’ve been able to use the 24/7 video feature a couple of times this year with between one and five minute wait.
- kelnos 4y ago
  > It's no longer easy to find an open time slot, I had to schedule my last physical a month and a half in advance. My experience is similar, but I don't think this is a problem. A physical is not remotely urgent and can wait. What I do care about is that I can get next-day appointments for more urgent things like non-emergency injuries that I want to get checked out, and that's always been possible. The one disappointing bit is that I can never get these short-notice appointments with my primary physician, but in general that's ok; I'm fine seeing someone else for stuff like that. I think the thing that I've enjoyed the most, aside from app-based appointment booking, is that I can send a message to my doctor for some kinds of referrals and avoid an office visit or phone call entirely. For example, I wanted an appointment with an allergist. I just messaged my primary physician, and the next day he faxed a referral to our local university hospital.

by s1mon 4y ago

b112 4y ago

You can probably afford to pay for all medical costs, out of pocket, now that you stopped buying at Wholefoods...

diogenescynic 4y ago
I know it's a meme that WholeFoods is expensive, but I've actually found it pretty comparable in price to other local organic markets and co-ops. I think a decade ago it was definitely more exclusive, but now it's in the same ballpark--I actually find WholeFood's veggies, fruits, meat, and cheese are cheaper than my local co-op.
- dmicah 4y ago
  Maybe it was just local competition, but in college a gallon of milk at Whole Foods was about $.25 cheaper than the Safeway across the street.
  - potatochup 4y ago
    Milk is a classic loss leader though. It's (intentionally) hard to compare overall prices between supermarkets
  - stevenwoo 4y ago
    The San Francisco Chronicle did an informal comparison (equivalent items where identical not available) shopping survey last year and found Whole Foods and Safeway neck and neck for most expensive groceries among major grocery stores in Bay Area.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  Yeah, they can have decent prices especially if you're willing to move your eating choices around "what's on sale this week". Same with most expensive stores. I definitely do it with whole foods, sprouts, and central market. I love curb-side pickup :)
- macNchz 4y ago
  It has been a few years since I regularly shopped at Whole Foods, but when I did my impression was that at least some of their reputation for high prices came from the fact that they had a wider range of minimum to maximum price in a given product category than a typical supermarket. I found their produce and "365" store brand items pretty comparable with other shops, but they also stocked high end versions of many things that you couldn't buy elsewhere, sometimes with eye-popping prices, so you'd have to be more selective about what you picked up off the shelf. Taking spices as a random example: a regular store might have own-brand cumin for like $0.75/oz and McCormick brand for $2.00/oz. Whole Foods store brand is likely somewhere in that range, but they'll also stock Morton & Bassett for like $4.00/oz, so if you're not careful you could pay 2-5x what you might have elsewhere.
dominotw 4y ago
No because their medical bills will be going up from not shopping at wholefoods.
scoofy 4y ago
...more like wholepaycheck amirite are, are we really still doing this bit?

samstave 4y ago

>>I'm not normally super paranoid about data privacy, but this doesn't feel good to me. Well, the conspira-cynic in me notes that Amazon has a 10 Billion contract with the USG for various data housing for many intel/defense arms of the USG... So, theres that...

gaws 4y ago

> I hope I don't have to stop using One Medical. I'm not normally super paranoid about data privacy, but this doesn't feel good to me. Sounds like you should stop using One Medical.

__derek__ 4y ago

Amazon has been HIPAA-compliant for years at this point. Even Alexa has been since 2019.[1] [1]: https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/ff33dbc7-6cf5-4db8-b203-99144a251a21/introducing-new-alexa-healthcare-skills https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/ff33dbc7-6cf5-...

Terretta 4y ago
> Even Alexa has been [HIPAA-compliant] since 2019. And most major sites still allowing your PII to go to 100 direct third parties and 4000 indirect parties are GDPR compliant. Regulation compliant doesn’t mean what most people think it means.
- api 4y ago
  Specifically it means that the company found a way to comply with the letter of the regulation, and that's it.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    What it actually really means is simply that Amazon is willing to sign a Business Associate Agreement with HIPAA covered entities for certain services, so that it is possible for the covered entity to use Amazon services while themselves meeting (one particular aspect of) HIPAA regulatory compliance. At least, that is what it seems to mean given that the support for the claim was a link to Amazon’s description of certain services as HIPAA-eligible, which is Amazon’s term for services they are willing to sign a BAA for.
- __derek__ 4y ago
  Sorry, I didn't follow the connection to the quoted sentence. Can you explain?
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  Compliant doesn't mean what people think it means or do you mean people don't know what the regulation says?

papito 4y ago

Amazon has been testing the waters and doing internal betas of something healthcare related for well over a year now. Scott Galloway called this a long time ago. Not really a shocker for Amazon watchers.

cactus2093 4y ago

I've been using One Medical for I think like 8 years now, at first I paid for it myself but the past few years it's been paid by my employer. In my experience they're still a bit more convenient than the average medical practice. At least I don't have to play phone tag to make an appointment, or have my appointment canceled because I was busy and couldn't answer a confirmation phone call. That just speaks to how terrible the average medical practice is at customer service. But I feel like One Medical has already started declining in quality and reverting to the mean of other providers. It's no longer easy to find an open time slot, I had to schedule my last physical a month and a half in advance. Last time I tried to do a teledoc session which is advertised as a 24/7 service, they happened to be closed all weekend (I'm not sure if that was a very unlucky one-time thing or how often that happens). Like with many other VC-funded companies, the early user-friendly imbalance of supply & demand was never going to be sustainable as they scaled up. What I have hated to see most, though, is how they have maneuvered their way into being yet another employer-funded health benefit. Now that it's "free" for me, my bar for service quality is much lower than it was when I was paying $100 a year. I already hate that medical insurance is employer funded in the US - the best solution would probably be a European-style government funded system, but the second best solution would just be to ban employer-sponsored health plans and let companies pay those amounts directly to employees to let them choose their own plan. Right now we have the worst of all worlds, it's not universal and it's not market driven either. And One Medical is now just the latest example of a similar kind of crony capitalism, which was true before Amazon bought them and I'm sure will continue being true now.

sroussey 4y ago
I’ve been able to use the 24/7 video feature a couple of times this year with between one and five minute wait.
kelnos 4y ago
> It's no longer easy to find an open time slot, I had to schedule my last physical a month and a half in advance. My experience is similar, but I don't think this is a problem. A physical is not remotely urgent and can wait. What I do care about is that I can get next-day appointments for more urgent things like non-emergency injuries that I want to get checked out, and that's always been possible. The one disappointing bit is that I can never get these short-notice appointments with my primary physician, but in general that's ok; I'm fine seeing someone else for stuff like that. I think the thing that I've enjoyed the most, aside from app-based appointment booking, is that I can send a message to my doctor for some kinds of referrals and avoid an office visit or phone call entirely. For example, I wanted an appointment with an allergist. I just messaged my primary physician, and the next day he faxed a referral to our local university hospital.