Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Amazon might have a new healthcare offering coming soon, according to a leaked video. A video published to the company’s YouTube page Tuesday — and then quickly taken down — described “Amazon Clinic,” an online care program that would offer treatment for “common conditions” like allergies and acne.
A screenshot taken from the now-unlisted video originally posted on the Amazon YouTube page.
As described in the video, people could fill out a questionnaire about their symptoms and pay a fee. A clinician would review their answers and provide a diagnosis and prescriptions as needed. “Telehealth services are offered by third-party healthcare provider groups,” according to the text in the video. The video directs people to amazon.com/clinic, a webpage that is not currently live at publication.
The video says that prescriptions would be sent to “your pharmacy.” It’s not clear if the program would direct people to Amazon Pharmacy, which is still struggling to take off, according to reporting from Insider in August.
Amazon spokesperson Christina Smith declined to comment on the video and the program it described.
A screenshot taken from the now-unlisted video originally posted on the Amazon YouTube page.
The described program would be yet another healthcare pivot for Amazon. Just a few months ago, the company announced it would shutter Amazon Care, its original telehealth service. That program started as a service for Amazon employees and then was expanded as an offering for any company that wanted to offer it to its employees. Amazon senior vice president of health Neil Lindsay said in an email announcing the shutdown that it “is not a complete enough offering for the large enterprise customers we have been targeting.”
The move came after Amazon announced it was acquiring primary care provider One Medical. It’s not clear if the third-party healthcare provider groups described in the Amazon Clinic video would include One Medical.
Tech companies are still figuring out how to best navigate the lucrative — but messy — healthcare industry. Depending on the form it ends up taking, this Amazon Clinic offering could be a new angle on the problem: focusing on customer experience, which the company is already good at, rather than trying to offer the care itself.