[HN Gopher] Amazon Buys One Medical
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Amazon Buys One Medical
Author : synergy20
Score : 37 points
Date : 2023-03-03 22:15 UTC (44 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (www.onemedical.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.onemedical.com)
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Has anyone have experience with One Medical? For example, if you
| have health insurance through your job, what does it provide that
| your insurance does not?
| 98codes wrote:
| One Medical is basically a conglomeration of doctor's offices
| with an app that allows for easy scheduling, remote visits,
| chat, and other stuff.
| SmellyPotato22 wrote:
| I have one medical. Basically the value proposition for me is
| that its easier interface to the whole medical system. Finding
| a primary care physicians can be done in like 5 minutes. Stuff
| like scheduling appointments, virtual visits, vaccines, tests
| and what not through the app is super easy. IDK if it will get
| mainstream adoption but to me it takes the edge off seeking
| medical care. Also their clinics are nice and in convenient
| places.
| skullone wrote:
| If it's anything like BetterHelp, you'll just be scheduled to
| the first available, lowest cost provider who get paid half or
| less the market rate for professional care. And knowing Amazon,
| they'll innovate newer ways to make it a dystopian dehumanizing
| process that leaves all parties with less care, less money,
| except for the shareholders.
| nexus7556 wrote:
| I think OP is asking about current experiences not what you
| think Amazon will turn it into.
| nexus7556 wrote:
| My employer has a relationship with them. They have multiple
| locations at our various offices. I have on in my building. The
| convenience is unbeatable, both the on site services and
| convenience of the app. I always can get an appointment.
|
| That being said over the last five years the quality of care
| has gone down. The good practitioners have left, and now there
| is quite a bit of turnover. I've had to change PCPs 4x in the
| last three years.
| dcow wrote:
| One medical is just a medical group like any other. They aren't
| insurance, they bill your insurance. They also charge a
| subscription fee which is not covered by insurance for
| membership. Out of membership you get access to their
| convenience services like mobile consultation. Most of these
| conveniences have been incorporated into big insurance players
| platforms by now, because they save money. They do so by trying
| to preempt you going to the clinic and starting to rack up
| charges when a video nurse could have told you to just take a
| chill pill. They also claim to offload much of the
| administrative and annoying health insurance work so you don't
| have to worry about it. I found this to be mostly true, but
| again becoming replicated by improved UX on the insurance
| providers sites. The other nice thing about them being a group
| is they have multiple clinics scattered around bigger metro
| areas. You can go to any site kinda like you would an urgent
| care.
|
| I don't use One Medical any more because I no longer live in an
| area where they exist. They were a good customer experience for
| the basics. I will note that they are really just a triage
| replacement and the people you see are often less experienced.
| And they don't do specialists, really. If you get into anything
| complicated you're dealing with the general medical system as
| normal (annoying trips to random floors in big research
| hospitals to do weird tests that don't really tell you anything
| other than you already know type of vibe, not really knowing if
| you're in network or not because nobody can tell you a straight
| answer type of vibe, not knowing up front what classifies as a
| co-pay and what's a covered benefit, why is "hospital" lab work
| billed more than clinic lab work and why does that mean my
| insurance covers less of it and I have to pay extra more type
| of vibe). They're not vertically integrated like a Kaiser.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| used it about 5 years ago in SF, switched to finding my own PCP
| since I moved elsewhere
|
| now that amazon owns it I wouldn't go near it
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| * * *
| imroot wrote:
| I had BetterHelp through my old job, and used their
| telemedicine feature...until they realized that I didn't live
| in a state that they had an "official" location in, so, they
| cancelled my membership (ironically enough, when I used their
| telemed offering, I _was_ in a state that they had offices in,
| just not near me!)
|
| ...only to reactivate it again when my employer questioned why,
| and have them cancel it again two weeks later.
|
| I haven't even tried to use them or look at their offerings
| after being de-platformed on repeat for the longest part of a
| year until my employer dropped them.
| todd3834 wrote:
| Before at home Covid tests were available this was the most
| convenient way to get a test without waiting in line
| todd3834 wrote:
| In my opinion the best thing they offer is little to no wait
| time even for same day appointments. Beats urgent care
| experience by a massive amount.
| swyx wrote:
| whatever happened to the old Amazon- Berkshire Hathaway deal that
| was going to disrupt the pharma retail industry? did it fall
| apart?
|
| edit: ah looks like yes
| https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/01/04/haven-the-amazon-berkshi...
| duxup wrote:
| > One key issue facing Haven was that while the firm came up
| with ideas, each of the three founding companies executed their
| own projects separately with their own employees, obviating the
| need for the joint venture to begin with, according to the
| people, who declined to be identified speaking about the matter
|
| Man, tanked their own venture.
| livinglist wrote:
| Didn't this happen in Jul 2022?
|
| https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/amazon-shells-o...
| ryanburk wrote:
| this is announcing the closing of the deal (late last month)
| codewiz wrote:
| Old news (February 22nd).
| nexus7556 wrote:
| Even older, this was announced last year.
| lolinder wrote:
| Discussed here just over a week ago:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34899188
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