“Amazon Care” Platform – Home Care Competition or Collaboration?

​​​​Last week, Amazon announced it is expanding the on-demand, virtual care platform, Amazon Care, in Washington now and nationally later this year. Earlier this month, Amazon Care teamed up with a variety of health care organizations — Signify Health, Ascension, Home Instead Senior Care and others — to form “Moving Health Home,” a new advocacy group with the goal of changing federal and state policies to expand at-home care. What does this mean for the home care industry?

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As a retail giant with vast resources and scale, the ability to provide accessible on-demand care could easily make Amazon a future major player in the home-based care industry. While Amazon could be serious competition for home-based care providers, on the other hand, this could potentially create opportunities for providers. For example, home health, home care or in-home primary care organizations could collaborate with Amazon to serve patients regionally or on a national level.
 
Home Health Care News conducted a LinkedIn poll to home-based care stakeh0lders which found that 52 percent said Amazon Care will be “bad” for traditional providers, while 48 percent said the platform would be “good.”
 
Some believe that Amazon has the power to elevate awareness and advocacy for the home care industry. For example, Amazon spent over $18.7 million on lobbying in 2020 on issues including COVID-19 testing, the CARES Act, and electronic health records.

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