Amazon to discontinue its Amazon Care telehealth service for businesses

Amazon Inc. is cancelling its Amazon Care virtual healthcare service, and this was confirmed on Wednesday, Aug. 24. It will be shut down by the end of this year as this is a necessary move to acquire its rival health service provider.

Amazon is awaiting regulatory approval for its acquisition of One Medical primary care provider. This does not just offer services online, but it also has a brick-and-mortar facility where doctors and health experts have actual offices for treatments and consultations.

Amazon Care does not have this as it is offering a purely virtual health care service or at-home doctor visits. Amazon is buying One Medical for $3.5 billion, and this was first announced just last month.

Reuters reported that Neil Lindsay, the senior vice president of Amazon Health Services and Amazon Stores, told employees that Amazon Care had many shortcomings despite the company’s efforts to provide the best services to clients.

One of Amazon Care's biggest clientele is Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., and it provides virtual care across the nation. The house calls are available to markets in Dallas, Los Angeles, and Washington.

"It is not a complete enough offering for the large enterprise customers we have been targeting and was not going to work long-term," Linsday stated in an email message that was forwarded to employees. The executive also said that he thinks the healthcare business is now "ripe for reinvention."

In any case, GeekWire reported that Amazon Inc. made the decision to discontinue the said service after determining the business was not the right long-term solution for business customers.

“One of the ways we’ve worked towards this vision for the past several years has been with our urgent and primary care service offering, Amazon Care,” Lindsay wrote in the email. “During that time, we’ve gathered and listened to extensive feedback from our enterprise customers and their employees, and evolved the service to continuously improve the experience for customers.”

He went on to say, “However, despite these efforts, we’ve determined that Amazon Care isn’t the right long-term solution for our enterprise customers, and have decided that we will no longer offer Amazon Care after Dec. 31, 2022.”