What Amazon Care’s nationwide expansion means for the telehealth industry
Amazon is officially starting its ascent to the national telehealth stage — and its nationwide expansion is putting the rest of the telemedicine industry on notice.
The company announced a sweeping expansion on Wednesday of Amazon Care, its virtual and in-person health care platform. Amazon will offer telehealth services to its own employees nationwide this summer and will also make in-person care available in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. The news came just two weeks after STAT reported that the company’s clinical partner, Care Medical, had quietly filed paperwork to start working in more than a dozen states.
It’s another part of Amazon’s announcement, though, that set the telehealth industry spinning Wednesday: The company plans to start selling Amazon Care to other employers later this year. Health care analysts say that while the telehealth market is already crowded, there’s certainly room for Amazon to gain a toehold.