An Amazon company logo marks the facade of a building in Schoenefeld near Berlin, March 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File)
Amazon is taking another shot at becoming a regular health care source for customers with the launch of a service centered on virtual care.
The e-commerce giant says its Prime customers can now get quick access to a health care provider through a program that costs $9 a month or $99 annually.
The company has made a number of attempts to incorporate healthcare into its platform and has started building momentum after some initial setbacks.
The company announced in August that it was adding video telemedicine visits in all 50 states to a virtual clinic it launched last year.
Yet Amazon shut down a virtual health care service last year that it spent years developing, and it was part of a high-profile but failed push to address health care costs in a partnership with two other major companies, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan.
Through the new service, patients will be able to connect virtually around the clock with care providers through its Prime One Medical membership program. The service includes video chats and an option to make in-person visits if there are One Medical locations near by.
The company said Wednesday that its membership fee covers the cost for the virtual visits. But customers would have to pay for any visits they make to the company’s One Medical primary care offices. They can use insurance for that.
Virtual care grew popular during the COVID-19 pandemic, and many health care providers have since expanded their telemedicine offerings. It has remained popular as a convenient way to check in with a doctor or deal with relatively minor health issues like pink eye.
While virtual visits can improve access to help, some doctors worry that they also lead to care fragmentation and can make it harder to track a patient’s overall health. That could happen if a patient has a regular doctor who doesn’t learn about the virtual visit from another provider.
Updated November 9, 2023 at 4:46 p.m. ET to add missing word in the seventh paragraph and correct "last summer" to "last year" in sixth paragraph.
March Madness kicked off this month as more and more states are legalizing sports betting — and some major upsets almost immediately busting many a bracket. Jay Croucher, the director of trading at the sportsbook PointsBet, joined Cheddar News to talk about the tournament and the current top picks. "There's not too much difference in terms of the busiest days of the year between the Super Bowl and the first day of March Madness," he said.
The Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy company invested $80 million in Verdox Inc. to facilitate efficient, lower-cost technolog to remove carbon from the air and emission sources. CEO of Verdox, Brian Baynes, joined Cheddar News to discuss the investment, how the company's tech works, and where he sees it going. "We anticipate that with technologies like ours, we potentially can get to the scale of about a million tons per year within 5-10 years," he said. "And then ultimately we need to be doing this at the scales of billions of tons per year and ultimately about 10 billion tons per year in the year 2050."
Amazon closed its deal to buy MGM's many content brands for $8.5 billion, and Michael Pachter, a managing director at Wedbush Securities, joined Cheddar News to discuss the e-commerce giant's second-largest acquisition to date and how he thinks it will all pay off. "To make a movie today, you just can't even think about it for less than 30 million bucks, so 4,000 movies, I mean that's several billion dollars worth of assets," he said, noting how it would also add to Amazon's little-known ad-supported IMDb TV service. "I don't know that the IMDb TV guys actually talk to the Amazon Prime Video guys, but a lot of content, it makes the value of a Prime subscription much, much greater, and people are far, far less likely to churn even if they're only buying one package every three months."
Rachel Thomas, the co-founder and CEO of the non-profit Lean In, joined Cheddar amid Women's History Month, to discuss how the organization is taking on issues that continue to impact the workplace through its Circles program. "These are a program that brings women together in small groups, usually 8 to 12, for support, camaraderie, and to learn together," she said. "We also we have a lot of curriculum so women can learn how to navigate workplace biases, how to negotiate with women." Thomas also applauded President Biden's recent call to action on equal pay for women, noting that businesses must do more to be cognizant of inherent gender and racial biases.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
Beer brand Heineken recently revealed its foray into the metaverse was something of a joke, but how serious are brands taking the latest craze in general? Cheddar's Alex Vuocolo takes a closer look.
With the highest inflation in 40 years, some retailers say shoppers are reaching their limits. Efforts to charge more for items are being met with new resistance from customers, especially on lower-priced apparel and furniture. Marshal Cohen, the chief retail industry analyst at market researcher NPD Group, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss the latest trends in consumer spending and how the hike in interest rates might impact wallets moving forward. "What's really impacting the consumer: higher prices, less promotions." He also noted other headwinds for the economy on the horizon including skimpier tax refunds for those who took advantage of child credits and student loan repayments possibly restarting.
