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Amazon is chopping jobs at its One Medical and Pharmacy units
- platzhirsch 3y agohttps://archive.is/ZvaQP https://archive.is/ZvaQP
- 98codes 3y agoOneMedical customer since well before the acquisition -- the enshittification continues. Competitor services costing muliples of what OneMedical does keeps me in place for now; that, and getting an appointment and the experience of that appointment at a "normal" doctor's office is still the same as it's always been: scheduling is a massive PITA, and you're lucky if they aren't running at least 30 minutes behind by lunchtime.
- jessriedel 3y agoHave you personally noticed any downgrade in your experience yet? Each year I waffle back-and-forth about whether the OneMedical membership fee is worth it, but only because I'm pretty healthy and don't get to use it much. Whenever I do, it works great: book an in-person doctor's appointment same-day/next-day in 10 minutes, get seen within 5 minutes of walking in, no need to fill out an in-take form with my complete medical history for the umpteenth time, and prescriptions and follow-up all handled seamlessly on the website. The Amazon acquisition seemed like the best outcome we could hope for. Experience says it's unrealistic for OneMedical to remain independent forever, and Amazon has much better customer service than almost any other big company with a broad customer base. Insofar as the OneMedical experience was stellar mostly because it was being subsidized with ~$1B in VC/PE money (which is plausible to me), belt tightening was inevitable.
- thex10 3y ago> Have you personally noticed any downgrade in your experience yet? Longtime One Medical customer here, it feels the same good experience to me.
- 98codes 3y agoThe two doctors I regularly saw - my primary care doctor and the one I used when she wasn't available - both left One Medical right after Amazon purchased them. Since then, it's impossible to get an MD appointment, but a flood of new physician assistants will happily see you. I'm at an age where if I'm going to the doctor, I want a doctor. That's harder to come by.
- jessriedel 3y agoWhere are you located? I just checked for appointments with MD in San Francisco tomorrow and there were 5 different doctors available, with maybe a dozen time slots to choose from.
- jlund-molfese 3y agoHave you tried https://goforward.com/ https://goforward.com/ ? It's not especially cheap and they don't accept insurance, but you can do everything in the app, there is no waiting time, and the medical professionals seem passionate and competent.
- tarr11 3y agoI was looking at them and gave them my contact info. The aggressive sales techniques- many calls and texts within a week - really turned me off.
- lancesells 3y agoSame here. Ads following me everywhere just made it seem like my health was not their main concern.
- 98codes 3y agoCosts 8x as much annually and doesn't take insurance? That's not a real option unfortunately.
- x0x0 3y agoAt the time of reading, there's a banner on the site reading "CLAIM YOUR EXCLUSIVE OFFER * Join for $99/mo (normally $149) * Ends Friday" Sales tactics like this are literally the last thing I want from my doctor.
- nerdjon 3y agoI have so far had good luck with Forward, been with them for 2 years. It is pricy, but being able to text someone at anytime and all of my basics are covered is nice. There isn't anything they can try to upsell me on since it's all included.
- chkaloon 3y agoHave you looked for an independent Direct Primary Care doc? I use one in Wisconsin in addition to my usual PCP for routine stuff, vaccinations, lab tests, etc, and it saves me 90%+ off what I would pay with my PCP. My PCP is just essentially my catastrophic backstop now.
- varelse 3y ago[dead]
- gnicholas 3y agoWe considered trying OneMedical, which opened an office close to where we live. But when I looked into it, it seemed like you have to buy a subscription up-front, with no other way to try it out. We might have made the switch by now if they had made it easier to try.
- dylan604 3y agoI was on a gig interviewing a doctor co-op. It was similar in that it was an upfront subscription plus co-pays per visit. They had a staff of MDs, more nurse practioners, and a staff of nurses. They also had a couple of psychiatrists on staff as well. The upfront subscription was still lower than an actual insurance plan. The only downside for me that I could see in the idea was it was not available in my city.
- malfist 3y agoEven if it's cheaper than insurance, your insurance pays for was more than just doctor visits
- dylan604 3y agothe vast majority of people's medical needs are typical office visits. emergencies or more serious things do occur, and they mentioned something about those situations but I was not part of that interview so I didn't get that part of the details.
- imbusy111 3y agoThe costs after you susbcribe are also insane: $420 for a 15min online chat. I got the same type of appointment for something around $20 directly from Cigna. And that's with a high deductible account.
- tekno45 3y agoIs it supposed to be cheaper? I doubt they're better. The Amazon of Healthcare doesn't seem like the best place for high quality doctors. but then it should be cheaper than your regular premiums and stuff. I really don't know what they're offering.
- gumby 3y agoBasically every big diversified company is cutting back on anyone who can't spell "AI". I appreciate the incompetence by which they are doing it as it they encourages the good people to leave.
- Nk26 3y agoAmazon pharmacy is probably one of the best interactions I’ve had with Amazon and pharmacies in general. We moved everything we could to it. The support has been great. Get things quickly all the information is right up front.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoWhat happens when they sunset it?
- arccy 3y agobut amazon is so user centric it will never kill anything... just let it rot
- toomuchtodo 3y agohttps://www.theverge.com/2022/7/29/23283743/amazon-drive-cloud-storage-shutting-down-2023 https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/29/23283743/amazon-drive-clo... https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-products-services-failed-discontinued-2019-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-products-services-fai... https://observer.com/2022/10/amazon-cancel-pandemic-products-cut-cost/ https://observer.com/2022/10/amazon-cancel-pandemic-products...
- sadfsdafklj 3y agoAmazon isn't Google. Amazon still operates SQS.
- malfist 3y agoWhy did you single out SQS?
- manishsharan 3y agoAll the hipsters are on Kafka.
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- lenerdenator 3y agoGuys, I'm starting to think there's no amount of capital that can bring the necessary efficiency/low prices to the American healthcare system while also maintaining a profit motive.
- gorwell 3y agoNo amount of capital can cut through the corruption and regulatory morass that has been built up over decades between the biopharma and government revolving door. That needs to get cleaned up before anyone has any chance of solving this. https://www.modernhealthcare.com/assets/png/CH107294927.PNG https://www.modernhealthcare.com/assets/png/CH107294927.PNG
- mgiampapa 3y agoIsn't that exactly what Mark Cuban is doing with Cost Plus Drugs Company?
- TaylorAlexander 3y agoI am sure there is room to improve things on the corporate side but I also feel that we need major structural changes on the government side. Both parties receive significant funding from insurance companies and both parties are so pro-corporate that it’s hard to find any viable candidates who will oppose expansion of bureaucracy as long as doing so ensures more profits. The real problems are systemic.
- pasttense01 3y agoCost Plus Drugs overwhelmingly just deals with generic drugs, but generic drugs are just a small fraction of total drug costs.
- ethanbond 3y agoPharmaceuticals are a shockingly small part of the spend in healthcare in the US. Like ~10%.
- _bkyr 3y ago
- JohnFen 3y agoHopefully, this is a precursor to them getting out of this space entirely. My fear is that they'll use their economic power to dominate this space and make it impossible for me to avoid using them in one way or another.
- gorwell 3y agoHopefully not! At this point we'd be better off if they did take it over vs getting out entirely. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39280477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39280477
- JohnFen 3y agoWe'll have to agree to disagree on this point. I don't object to people who are OK with Amazon having a hand in their health care being able to do so. I just don't want them to have anything to do with my life in general, and especially not when it comes to really sensitive things like that. I worry that I may not end up having a choice. Or, worse, that I won't be able to tell if they're involved at all. Others should have the ability to involve Amazon if they want, and equally I should have the ability to exclude Amazon.
- duffpkg 3y agoA struggle I have seen play out numerous times, and at one point my own company fell victim to it, is that there are these obvious operational inefficiences in healthcare that every tech entrpenuer thinks they can hop onto as an easy oppourtunity. Then they run face first into the wall of a highly regulated industry in which, in most states, corporate power over care is severely restricted. Secondly, the last 5% matters just as much as the first 95%. You have to get to 100% because you are dealing with real people not "transactions". It took us 10 years to really get the hang of how to create positive operational change in big healthcare systems and it's very nuanced and slow. In a nutshell it's a lot of carrot and stick or maybe a lot of micro-carrot and micro-stick. Amazon tried the brute force approach with Haven and it failed spectacularly. The pharmacy and one-medical plays were a dip your toes in the water approach but from what I have seen they are replaying most of the same mistakes.
- htrp 3y agoFor context, would you mind sharing your company that was dealing with these issues?
- duffpkg 3y agoI created ClearHealth which was the first and possibly only fully federal certified open source EMR. We started with EMR but very quickly became a healthcare operations management company that managed some very large multi-state acute and ambulatory care groups.
- infecto 3y agoDon’t use OneMedical anymore but surprised people think Amazon is making it worse. The writing was on the wall well before the acquisition that you fill an office with a ratio of something like 1 doctor to 10 PA. Most visits can be covered by a PA. For those looking for chronic care and a stable doctor, I highly recommend going the route of a direct care physician. As a family of two adults and one child we pay something like $180 a month to go see a doctor anytime with no copay or visit costs. For better or worse I see this as a better outcome in the US. Pay for a DPC doctor and then a high deductible plan for emergency.
- weeksie 3y agoPeople are saying One Medical isn't great but it's by far the best experience I've had with health care. Good comms, easy to get visits, walk-ins for bloodwork etc etc. It's just super convenient. I'm in NYC and maybe it's different elsewhere but it's totally worth the subscription for me.