Amazon’s Officially Big into Healthcare

Feature By Bruce Japsen

AMAZON’S $4 BILLION acquisition of the primary care startup One Medical gives the retail giant entrée into local community healthcare systems, including Chicago’s largest medical care provider where the online retail giant’s physical in-person presence is poised to grow even larger.

Rumored for years that Amazon wanted to be in the business of providing primary medical care, the speculation turned to reality this year when the online retail giant known for its global logistics and package delivery spent billions of dollars to become a national provider of in-person healthcare services.

Across the country, One Medical operates more than 220 primary care offices in more than two dozen U.S. markets—including the Chicago area. The sites include One Medical primary care offices, senior health offices specific for patients covered by Medicare, direct primary care clinics, and primary care offices for specific employee populations, the company says.

And in the markets it operates, One Medical has partnered with some of the nation’s largest and well-known locally operated healthcare systems from Mount Sinai Health System in New York and Mass General Brigham in Boston to UCSF Health in San Francisco, providing buyers of its membership healthcare platform a way to access more specialized services that are attractive to commercial health insurance networks including employers.

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