Amazon Pharmacy: Charting a course for entry into the medical industry
Amazon has launched Amazon Pharmacy, a little over two years after acquiring prescription drug delivery service PillPack for $753 million. This allows customers in the US to order prescription drugs for home delivery, with free delivery for Amazon Prime members.
Customers over the age of 18 will be able to use the pharmacy service in 45 states, not including Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana and Minnesota. Amazon expects to bring the service to these states over time.
Amazon Pharmacy accepts most forms of insurance, but can also offer savings for those without insurance. Customers can also use their Flexible Savings Account or Health Savings Accounts to purchase prescriptions on the service.
When ordering medication for the first time, the site will ask you questions such as whether you are pregnant, your date of birth, and the gender assigned at birth. This information is required by law for pharmacies to provide service and is used by pharmacists to verify prescriptions. Amazon has tools to help doctors verify the validity of each prescription and reduce the possibility of fraud.
The drugs being offered are a line of generic and branded drugs. Customers can pick up commonly prescribed medications such as insulin, triamcinolone steroid cream, metformin to control blood sugar, sumatriptan for migraines, as well as birth control pills.
Customers can compare prices with their insurance co-payments, or without insurance, or with savings from savings plans offered by Amazon, and choose the cheapest option.
If they have questions about their medications, they can always contact a pharmacist or pharmacy employee through online self-service or by phone. Drug interaction screening is also offered for customers who are taking multiple medications at the same time.
Using a secure pharmacy profile, customers can add their insurance information, manage their prescriptions, and select payment options. The storage and collection of customer health information comply with federal HIPAA regulations, and the company says it will not share pharmacy data with advertisers or marketers without permission.
Initial orders can take up to five days to deliver due to the time it takes to transfer the medication, but if you’re on Amazon Prime you can get free delivery within two days. Customers who don’t have Prime can get free delivery within five days and can also upgrade to two-day delivery for $5.99. Those who subscribe to Amazon’s premium membership automatically get unlimited free two-day delivery.
PillPack is expected to continue to serve customers after Amazon Pharmacy is launched, as it is designed for different use cases, delivering medications on a 30-day schedule to patients who tend to be sicker and older than average and often require multiple prescriptions.
Amazon Pharmacy is only available in the United States for now, but demand is growing worldwide. Online pharmacy services are projected to generate $131 billion in revenue worldwide by 2025. Prescription drugs, on the other hand, is estimated to be a $904 billion industry this year and is projected to grow to nearly $1.3 trillion by 2025.
In the U.S., companies like CVS and Wal-Mart are constantly negotiating the price of drugs, and they have a lot of market power. They have been able to monopolize certain drugs, making it more difficult for consumers to access them. If Amazon comes in, it will disrupt this because they have much greater buying power.
The company rolled out Amazon Care for Amazon employees in Seattle as part of a pilot service that offers both in-person and telemedicine services.
Last August, Amazon launched its Halo fitness tracker. The service, which monitors and advises on personal health and wellness, includes a $64.99 wrist tracker and a suite of applications for monitoring health.
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