The group is investing more and more money in its healthcare business.
(Photo: Reuters)
new York The US online retailer Amazon takes over the US group One Medical from San Francisco for 3.9 billion dollars. The Seattle-based company announced this on Thursday. One Medical operates a total of 182 general practitioner offices in the United States.
Users have to pay a membership fee and can use the portal to book virtual or personal medical treatment in the branches around the clock. One Medical works with more than 8,000 companies whose employees use the corporate network.
For Amazon, it’s another foray into the healthcare business. The group is already active in the sale of medicines as an online pharmacy. However, another plan to set up their own health care system together with JP Morgan and Warren Buffett’s holding company Berkshire Hathaway had failed.
With the purchase of One Medical, Amazon enters the medical business for the first time. Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of Amazon Health Services, who oversees Amazon’s healthcare business, said, “We believe healthcare is at the top of the list of services that need to be reinvented.”
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One Medical has a new approach to making America’s opaque healthcare system easier for customers. One Medical doctors offer family doctor services and work with almost all major health insurance companies.
One Medical advertises with quick appointments on the same or next day and with 24-hour availability. To get access to it, customers pay around $200 a year. The share price of One Medical parent 1Life Healthcare rose almost 70 percent after the announcement. Amazon’s share price, on the other hand, was only slightly up.
New players in the healthcare market
Family doctor care without specialists in particular has recently produced many innovations in the USA. Also because hospitals are extremely expensive in the emergency room, chains like CityMD have prevailed, which provide customers with not too serious emergencies at significantly lower prices. They also take care of vaccinations or the annual check-up for their patients. Pharmacy chains like CVS have recently opened small medical practices within their branches for simple treatments.
Hospital treatment is expensive, but the One Medical family doctor system is cheaper.
(Photo: AP)
For Amazon, One Medical is the third largest acquisition in the company’s history. Only for the Whole Foods supermarket chain and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) film studios did the group pay more money.
In 2017, then-CEO and founder Jeff Bezos paid more than $13 billion for Whole Foods’ healthcare markets. He paid $8.45 billion for the MGM studios, which produce the James Bond films, among other things.
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On the other hand, the new CEO Andy Jassy is responsible for the purchase of One Medical. He has been CEO of the company for a year and previously built up the cloud division, which is now lucrative.
Commenting on the deal, Amir Dan Rubin, Chief Executive Officer of One Medical, said: “There is tremendous opportunity to make the healthcare experience more accessible, affordable and even enjoyable – for patients, providers and payers.” He will continue with the company after the acquisition to lead. One Medical is not yet profitable. The company lost more than $90 million on sales of $254 million.
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