Giles Bruce – Becker’s Payer Issues
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said modern healthcare is “just kind of nutty” and future generations will look back on this time wondering what we were thinking, Fortune reported.
He described the 2024 experience of making an appointment sometimes far in advance, driving to the physician’s office, sitting in a series of waiting areas, seeing a clinician for a few minutes, then commuting to the pharmacy, according to the Jan. 24 story. He said explaining it to his future grandchildren will be akin to telling his children that we didn’t always have cellphones.
“My kids’ kids will not believe what the healthcare experience was for us,” Mr. Jassy told the news outlet at the recent Davos conference in Switzerland. “That experience is just kind of nutty” and will “completely go away with the future of healthcare.”
He believes his company will have a lot to do with shaping that future, according to the story. With One Medical, which Amazon bought in 2023 for $3.9 billion, and Amazon Pharmacy, many patients can get treatment without leaving their homes, via virtual care and medication delivery.
One Medical “has an amazing digital interface. You can chat with doctors and get same-day or next-day appointments,” Mr. Jassy told Fortune. “Whatever pharmaceutical needs you have; they’re connected to Amazon Pharmacy that you just get sent to your house within a day.”
Whether it all goes the way of Haven Health, a disruptor founded by Amazon, JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway that disbanded in 2021, or whether the Federal Trade Commission’s data privacy concerns over the deal have an effect, remain to be seen, the news outlet reported.
