Amazon is buying ‘membership-based’ healthcare provider One Medical for $3.9 billion

Image: One Medical

If the deal closes, it will be the third largest acquisition in the company's history, following the purchase of MGM and Whole Foods. A staffer at the company is considering signing up for the company's $199 primary care provider subscription, which is similar to any other doctor.

One Medical is backed by an app, on-demand services over video, and guaranteed same- or next-day appointments through more than 125 offices. There are videos on the internet that promise to remake doctors' offices with better furniture.

We can't make a trip to the doctor's office feel like a vacation but we can make the waiting room feel like a hotel lobby. Our design team is great at finding furniture and textiles that are not clinical but still function in a clinical setting.

The sheen is not visible in some of the reports that have been written about One Medical. Some patients were charged for vaccine shots that should have been free because ineligible people were allowed to skip the line to get the vaccine.

The healthcare market has been a focus of the company in the past. Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of Amazon Health Services, stated that health care is high on the list of experiences that need to be reinvented. Booking an appointment, waiting weeks or even months to be seen, taking time off work, driving to a clinic, finding a parking spot, waiting in the waiting room, then the exam room for what is too often a rushed few minutes with a doctor, is just one of the things that

In order to take on existing giants in the healthcare market, Amazon has set up an infrastructure to do so. They can use the acquisition of One Medical to get into the primary care space.

There is an immense opportunity to make the health care experience more accessible, affordable, and enjoyable for patients, providers, and payers. We want to expand access to quality healthcare services.