Internal memo: Amazon will stop offering Amazon Care at the end of 2022, after determining that it wasn't “the right long-term solution” for enterprise clients
Amazon will stop offering its Amazon Care primary health-care services at the end of this year, according to an internal memo …
GeekWireTodd Bishop
Context & Ripple Effects
Amazon Care moved from an employee pilot to an employer-facing service through a planned expansion beyond Seattle, then added nationwide telehealth and in-person care in more cities. Its customer list had grown to include Whole Foods, Silicon Labs, and TrueBlue through the national rollout.
The shutdown reverses that enterprise-healthcare push: Amazon has concluded the offering does not fit its long-term needs for enterprise clients, despite the broader service footprint.
First-order effects
Amazon Care will cease at year-end, ending the telehealth and in-person care option Amazon had been selling to enterprise customers.
Whole Foods, Silicon Labs, and TrueBlue must transition employees away from a service Amazon had recently expanded nationwide.
Second-order effects
The employers that adopted Amazon Care will need replacement arrangements for the primary-care access and city-based in-person coverage they had purchased from Amazon.
Amazon loses a direct enterprise channel for its healthcare service just as its rollout had broadened beyond the original employee pilot.
Third-order effects
Amazon's reversal suggests that moving an internally piloted service into an external enterprise product requires a durable client fit, not simply a successful internal launch or wider geographic availability.
If Amazon continues to close adjacent services that do not meet that threshold, its enterprise portfolio will become more selective about which internal experiments become standalone offerings.
The trend: Large technology companies are testing services first inside their own operations, then retaining only the enterprise products that demonstrate a sustainable customer fit.
People who work at Amazon Care learned the news in a meeting on Wednesday, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they signed nondisclosure agreements. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Surprised to see $AMZN throw in the towel so quickly. Many could have told them health care will take more than a brief trial campaign to overhaul. Amazon to shut down its telehealth offering - The Washington Post - https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... #GoogleAlerts #Telemedicine
“This isn't the end. This the beginning” in earnest of Amazon's healthcare strategy one source tells me; another sign Neil Lindsay is eying $SGFY to go after the fast-growing Medicare Advantage market. Details via @annierpalmer https://www.cnbc.com/...
Amazon Care signed a deal with Hilton to provide health care to its more than 100k employees less than a year ago. Now Amazon is shutting the whole thing down, saying it didn't create enough value for enterprise customers. https://twitter.com/...
Amazon Care has half a dozen corporate customers including Hilton, Silicon Labs, Precor, and Amazon-owned Whole Foods. Workers were told the service was shutting down because those customers did not see the value in the service, one of the people said. https://www.washingtonpost.…
Scoop here from @geekwire on Amazon Care shutting down, per an Internal Memo. My speculative comment is that it was inevitable after the One Medical buy-up. Too much awkward overlap here. Makes sense & I don't think it's indicative of much else. https://www.geekwire.com/...
Even considering the overlap with Amazon's pending One Medical acquisition, the decision to end Amazon Care is a surprise. Our story includes the full internal memo: https://www.geekwire.com/...