Big news. Amazon bought One Medical. Who is One Medical? Well, they are a DINO (DPC in Name Only). Maybe. The description of One Medical is slippery. They don’t call themselves DPC in the buyout announcement, though others put them in the DPC category:
One Medical is a human-centered, technology-powered U.S. primary care organization on a mission to make quality healthcare more affordable, accessible, and enjoyable through a seamless combination of in-person, digital, and virtual care services
One Medical combines in-person care in inviting offices across the country with digital health and virtual care services, making it easier for patients to schedule appointments, renew prescriptions, access up-to-date health records, and advance health outcomes
Human-centered? Yeah, I guess. If you were animal-centered you would be a vet. WTF? What about the rest of their description? Well, it sounds like every other DPC doctor. The difference is that we charge a low monthly fee and DO NOT bill insurance companies. One Medical is more concierge medicine. They charge $199 and still bill insurance. They are NOT DIRECT PRIMARY CARE.
Also, here is how their numbers break down for doctors vs. other clinicians:
If you add them up you get 292 physicians of their self-described 782 “providers”.
Wow, they have almost a 3 to 1 nondoctor-to-doctor ratio and are being described as concierge medicine? Interesting. Are they even that?
And what about Amazon. This is what Kenneth Qiu, MD shared with me:
One Medical just bought Peak Med, a DPC network in Colorado, a few months ago. They bought IORA a few years ago I think as a way to enter the DPC space. This news means Amazon understands the value proposition of DPC and wants to get in on the action or they see some potential and want to make their own Frankenstein version. Either way, now more than ever we need to grow the organic DPC movement and show our communities what DPC is and should be before more DINOs emerge.
People might not know that companies like One Medical and Forward are about profit. Big profit. You can read this article to see why. When private equity and VCs get involved they want a 10x on their return. And they may have gotten it with Amazon. This means others are going to try and do the same thing, which includes hijacking the term Direct Primary Care. This will result in more DINOs on the loose who will be terrorizing more people than all the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies combined.
In summary, Amazon is obviously smitten with doing something in healthcare. They have their Amazon Pharmacy but the prices are mediocre. I don’t know many docs using Amazon Pharmacy for their patients. Too many better choices.
And let’s not forget Haven Health:
Haven Health, sparked by an idea from JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon and supported Jeff Bezos and Berkshire’s Warren Buffett, sought to “transform health care” and reduce costs for hundreds of thousands of workers at the three companies by pooling resources and technology.
The joint venture, which was announced in 2018 with expectations high enough to push down major insurers’ shares, will cease operations in February without having achieved those aims.
Haven’s transformative ambitions proved too difficult to achieve, according to people familiar with the matter. Its shutdown attests to the challenges of making sweeping changes to the U.S. health-care system and of bringing innovations to hundreds of thousands of employees around the country working at different companies, the people said.
There is also PillPack, which was sued for obtaining patient data, as well as having a history of selling software that mines patient medical records for information from doctors and hospitals.
They have been sniffing around the healthcare industry’s butt for a while and maybe they have bigger plans, but buying One Medical? This is just my opinion but what are you doing, Amazon? For $3.9 billion!!?? I predict this will fail as well. One Medical can’t even figure out how to describe themselves. They are a witches brew of a little insurance, a little concierge, a pinch of DPC, and VERY FEW doctors working there.
“Healthcare is high on the list of experiences that need reinvention,” Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of Amazon Health Services, said in a news release. “We want to be one of the companies that helps dramatically improve the healthcare experience over the next several years.”
I have an idea for Amazon. Why don’t you work with some of the smartest people in the REAL direct primary care industry to figure out a way to expand DPC? I know them. Ask me and I will point you in the right direction of the real success stories of our broken healthcare system: independent direct primary care doctors who have figured out how to improve the healthcare experience.
Until then, you just bought a dog, I mean, a DINO, and wasted your money.
Big Tech getting involved in DPC is frightening to me. As an employee benefits advisor, I’m seeing more and more data selling by EMRs and hospital systems…even without the patient’s consent. DPC was the last frontier where this was not happening. 100% Independently owned DPC is now the last frontier.
“Healthcare is high on the list of experiences that need reinvention,” Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of Amazon Health Services, said in a news release. “We want to be one of the companies that helps dramatically improve the healthcare experience over the next several years.”
When a company improves something, they improve it from a company standpoint, not a patient standpoint, or a doctor standpoint, or even a community standpoint. When the government improves something… same thing. If a doctor interested in his relationship with his patient improves something, it becomes better for the doctor and the patient, not the company. Nice try Amazon, but I have seen what your improvements do to your employees. No interest in getting on that hamster wheel. Sounds too much like the one I just got off of.
If the DPC community (or Amazon!) is confused about whether One Medical is direct primary care, it just mighty be because the Direct Primary Care Alliance prominently bragged One Medical’s track record as DPC success. See Building the Path to Direct Primary Care, May 13, 2020 (https://web.archive.org/web/20201107075045/https://dpcalliance.org/dpc-path accessed 7/24/2022).
It was the only time the Direct Primary Care Alliance cited an actual published, peer-reviewed research article purporting to demonstrate that DPC resulted in lower overall healthcare spending. But the research addressed care was delivered entirely by One Medical on an FFS basis (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7193330/).
No surprise that Amazon liked the same One Medical results that the DPC movement tried to claim.
Do you know what is so funny? There is this loser named Gary Ratner who said the same thing on Twitter. You wouldn’t be him, would you? I knew that guy was warped and had a stick up his ass about DPC but he wasn’t a coward. Prove me wrong.
@Gerald Farcer
I think you’re trying to make some point, but I can’t quite figure out what it is…perhaps a better explanation will help. Thanks.
@ Doug Farrago
Hi, Dr Farrago. Thanks for the colorful language. Your readers might better appreciate your remarks if you gave just little more context.
In March of last year, I posted this comment to DPC News item urging everyone to contribute their opinions.:
“While some, most, or maybe even all DPC fans may reject my commentary, I study DPC — independently and in good faith — and then “call ’em as I see ’em”. All commentary is completely free at dpcreferee.com. dpcrereree.com is entirely self-funded. I receive no compensation from any providers, insurers or other third-party payers.”
And you responded with this reply post:
“So, I am going to be nice here. This will be the last time. You are probably one of the most detested people in the DPC universe. I have never met you. From what I hear, I don’t want to. That all being said, from speaking to dozens of DPC doctors they all state that your cognitive bias is off the charts and you have an ax to grind about DPC. I have removed your link because I will not promote you here. From the bottom of heart please take heed of these letters: GTFO.”
Then you deleted not just my link to dpcreferee.com, but my entire post, and your “nice” response.
That’s because you’re an idiot. Dude, go away. You lied about being Gary Farcer. So, to quote a great man, from the bottom of my heart please take heed of these letters: GTFO
@ Jack Forbush
The so-called DINO produced such excellent results that the leaders of the Direct Primary Care community assumed and bragged that those results were attributable to Direct Primary Care. That One Medical actually attained such results while accepting insurance on an FFS basis, in a large corporate practice group, and with a low doc-to-staff ratio substantially undercuts some of the most important elements of the argument for Direct Primary Care.
By the way, One Medical (45%) outperformed by more than THREE-FOLD the cost reduction predicted for DPC arrived at in the Milliman report (13%). Amazon bought One Medical, rather than a DPC leader like Paladina. Wouldn’t you?
Hope this answers your question.