A Year After Amazon Purchase, One Medical Adds Clinics And New Markets
A Year After Amazon Purchase, One Medical Adds Clinics And New Markets Bruce Japsen, Senior Contributor
A year after Amazon bought One Medical, the provider of physician-staffed clinics and virtual care ... [+] has added more than 15 new offices and will be expanding into two additional U.S. markets by the end of 2024. In this picture is Amazon-owned One Medical's Preston Place. (Latanya Simmons Photo)
LATANYA SIMMONS
A year after Amazon bought One Medical, the provider of physician-staffed clinics and virtual care has added more than 15 new offices and will be expanding into two additional U.S. markets by the end of this year.
One Medical, which has nearly 240 primary care offices in more than 20 U.S. markets, is expanding in existing markets in addition to adding new locations later this year in Milwaukee and Hackensack, New Jersey. The expansion comes a little more than a year after Amazon closed on its $3.9 billion acquisition of One Medical with a vow to expand more healthcare services in the markets where it operates via its One Medical, One Medical Seniors, and offices for specific employer populations.
Amazon and One Medical executives see consumer demand for its primary care model across metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) given “40% of Americans don’t have a primary care provider,” the company’s chief executive says.
“We look at MSA specific needs and try to meet our members where they are in terms of their desire for access and convenience,” One Medical chief executive officer Trent Green said in an interview. “We’re sustaining and we are intentionally expanding our physical footprint.”
Amazon’s commitment to One Medical expansion comes as Walmart grows its doctor-staffed Walmart Health clinics into new markets and CVS Health, which spent $10 billion last year to add Oak Street health centers for seniors covered by Medicare, adds to its portfolio of medical care provider operations by expanding to new markets.
Meanwhile, Walgreens, which made a multi-billion-dollar investment with ots primary care partner VillageMD, has struggled somewhat by expanding too fast and being unable to fill patient panels in certain markets it is now exiting. Walgreens last week reported a loss of nearly $6 billion in its second quarter due largely to the loss in value of its VillageMD investment.
But One Medical executives say their model is performing well and they don’t tie physicians to productivity numbers based on volume of patients treated. Rather the physicians are salaried. One Medical’s expansion of offices and clinics depend on each market’s needs, especially given challenges recruiting physicians amid a national doctor shortage, executives said.
Green said One Medical’s partnerships with local healthcare systems can “augment” or “serve as an extension .. . of their (partner healthcare system’s) primary care infrastructure” into areas where they don’t have providers.
The One Medical partnerships with local healthcare systems also provide buyers of its membership healthcare platform a way to access more specialized services that are attractive to commercial health insurers and local employers that might include One Medical-Amazon health and pharmacy services in their health benefit packages. One Medical has partnered with some of the nation’s largest and well-known locally operated healthcare systems from Mount Sinai Health System in New York and Mass General Brigham in Boston to UCSF Health in San Francisco.
In New Jersey, the new clinic is opening in a partnership with Hackensack Meridian Health while the Milwaukee expansion will include a partnership with Advocate Aurora Health.
“We’re leading with selection, value and convenience,” Green said. “We have a team-based mentality and want to be the best place for providers to deliver care.”
Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other work here.