More than a year after Amazon.com agreed to buy One Medical, an in-person and virtual primary care practice, the company is lowering the price of its telehealth service for a second time for Prime members.
Prime members can now add the virtual healthcare service to their subscription for an additional $9 per month or $99 per year, Amazon announced Wednesday, in an effort to grow the platform’s subscriber base. One Medical provides 24-hour virtual access to doctors, making online appointments, releasing medical data, renewing prescriptions and referring to specialists.
Subscription fees are not required to receive personal medical services and the fees do not cover medical services.
Prime members can add up to five additional family members to their One Medical plan for $6 per month for each family member. Prime subscriptions cost $14.99 per month or $139 per year.
One Medical plans normally cost $199, and since Amazon bought the company for $3.9 billion in 2022, it has offered discounts in the hope that its 167 million U.S. Prime members will try out the telehealth offering. One Medical ended 2022 with 836,000 members.
Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of health services at Amazon, said Amazon’s telehealth efforts “try to make it easier [voor patiënten] to get care, to get medications, and to get things to help them feel better.”
While both Amazon and other tech giants are exploring telehealth options for customers, healthcare privacy laws have hindered rapid growth and adoption.
In July, Amazon offered Prime members One Medical plans for $144 for the first year, compared to the $199 price tag for the annual telehealth plan for one member. Amazon announced a similar deal in February for new One Medical customers, regardless of whether they were Prime members or not. (Reporting by Arriana McLymore in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)
