If Walgreens and Walmart (NYSE: WMT) fail, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is aiming for success. As Americans age, primary healthcare has become an increasingly important goal for retailers. But conquering has proven elusive. According to Costar News, Amazon is trying to take a different approach.
Partnering with the hospital chain and providing care to its key members now costs additional costs, but they hope to succeed if others aren't. San Francisco-based Amazon One Medical recently opened its first center in Edgewater, New Jersey. One healthcare plan to provide hybrid virtual and in-person primary care services and expand further in New Jersey City and Englewood in Westchester County, New York, and Cleveland planned this year.
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In New Jersey, it partners with Garden State's largest health network, Hackensack Meridian Health, according to CoSTar News. Westchester will promote treatment for members of the Montefiore Health System and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.
One Edgwater medical customer will receive same-day and next-day face-to-face appointments and 24/7 virtual care. The facility treats both short-term and long-term patients with chronic illness.
Like other companies under its umbrella, Amazon hopes to leverage its vast prime membership base to build a healthcare business. Currently, Prime members can add one medical membership for $9 a month or $99 a year. The company's website says that one healthcare also works with 10,000 U.S. employers as part of its benefits package for workers and dependents.
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Two years after purchasing one person's healthcare for $3.9 billion in February 2023, Amazon, one of its biggest acquisitions, has found it to be two major competitors or decline from the race.
Walmart closed its primary healthcare business last April and closed 51 locations.
“Through our management experience at Walmart Health Centers and Walmart Health Virtual Care, we have determined that there is no sustainable business model to continue,” the company's statement read. “Escalating operating costs creates a lack of profitability that makes the care business unsustainable at this time.”
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