Amazon and health care

Amazon.com is wading deeper into the virtual health care market.

The company that sells about everything had previously made its telehealth service — Amazon Care — available to its Washington-based employees, with in-person home visits from health care professionals scheduled as needed.

Now, Amazon is expanding its virtual care offerings to all of its 575,000 employees nationwide. Its in-person service will extend to Washington, D.C., Baltimore and other cities. And, of particular note, it will begin offering its health care services to other companies in Washington state as a form of workplace benefits.

There are advantages to such a model. Given the company’s ownership of Amazon Pharmacy and access to medical devices, creating a synergy between health care professionals and patients is logical and convenient. Many users have already spoken out about how the arrangement cuts red tape and wait times associated with traditional health care, especially for minor illnesses and medical issues.

Furthermore, Amazon has pledged that its offerings will be compatible with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, which protects patients’ health information by restricting who is allowed to access health records. This is a necessary firewall between Amazon’s health initiatives and other businesses. Given the fierce public scrutiny of tech companies’ handling of private data as well as recent scandals involving data breaches and thirdparty access, acknowledging governmental oversight should help put patients’ minds at ease.

In the long run, however, virtual visits must not replace in-person care.

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed an appetite for virtual visits, given their relative safety. But chatting with a nurse or doctor by videoconference does not allow for the same level of care or accuracy in all situations. Blood pressure can’t be checked through a screen. And while Amazon is rolling out its virtual care nationwide, its inperson services are rolling out at a much slower pace.

A company spokesperson clarified by email that details from virtual visits can be shared with patients’ primary care physicians on request if a patient needs in-person care.

There are, on its face, some obvious benefits to Amazon’s greater foothold in the health care market: experience at providing health care benefits to its gigantic workforce as well as the economies of scale that result from that broad employee base. At the same time, there is an off-putting je ne sais quoi that seems to emanate from the issues of privacy and market dominance. A case in point: On the day Amazon announced its deeper foray into health care, stock values at other telehealth companies like Teladoc and Amwell fell sharply. The implications of Amazon’s growth, especially into the essential industry of health care, are potentially far reaching.

Still, for the short term, Amazon’s muscular expansion will translate to more flexible health care options for subscribers who are covered by this corporate giant. In the long term, its deeper and broader reach into American lives will need to be monitored.