While Amazon's splashy acquisitions have generated significant buzz, a foundational piece of the technology and e-commerce giant's healthcare business is focused on partnerships with digital health companies.
Amazon launched its Health Benefits Connector in January 2024 with digital health unicorn Omada Health for patients with high blood pressure and diabetes. The service allows users to input information about their insurance plan and potentially identify covered services from Amazon’s partners.
Related: Digital health companies pitch employers on cutting GLP-1 costs
When an Amazon customer searches for products related to a medical condition, they may be shown advertisements for relevant services or items. For example, a user with joint or muscle pain searching for a back brace might see an ad for Hinge Health’s programs. Customers would also have the option to check their eligibility for services through the third party.
Since launching Health Benefits Connector, Amazon has added partnerships with a series of digital health companies including Teladoc for blood pressure and diabetes care, Talkspace for behavioral health and Hinge Health for virtual musculoskeletal health.
“The idea is that when users input their information to determine whether or not they have access to a benefit, we want to make sure that it's as comprehensive of a search as possible,” said Aaron Martin, Amazon’s vice president of health partnerships and marketing. “That means there is a high likelihood that you come back with a benefit that you didn't know you even had access to.”
Martin spoke about the company’s approach to third-party partnerships, why healthcare makes it easier to form partnerships, and how the company plans to expand the program. He declined to share terms of the contracts.
The interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Amazon has taken a varied approach in healthcare. Can you share more about where it’s going?
We're going to focus on both first-party and third-party services. I think we’ll be first party in a pretty narrow set of areas. It has to have a very high bar for us to invest in, like in pharmacy or primary care provider One Medical. The reason is we have to believe that we can enhance that customer experience dramatically — differently than what's already out there. I don't think that list of things that will be first-party is going to be super long over time. As we expand our partnerships, we want to make it more and more seamless, so the consumer doesn't have to deal with all these transitions that they must go through in healthcare today.
So, the majority of your healthcare business will be delivered by third parties?
Yes. I think it will be because the complexity, the variety and the localization of all these different services are vast.
What other clinical areas are of interest?
The business development piece of it is pretty straightforward. You' have to take the disease or chronic condition by prevalence from biggest to smallest. Then you go by who has the most coverage biggest to smallest. ... We started with the big ones and then you work your way across the spectrum of conditions. It's not complicated to figure out where we're going next, because it's really what the employers are funding in their preventive-care budgets.
What is your pitch to digital health companies?
Companies are evaluated based on the results of their platforms. Those results are highly related to how many people will be on your platform from that employee base. They have probably negotiated as much access to the employee base as possible to promote the service so they can get as many employees to use the service as possible. But there's a limit to that. Employers don't want digital health companies to email their employees every month. They limit that access. These digital health companies need other ways to engage users when they are in the active pursuit of shopping for something that's related to their condition.
Many of the segments are not exclusive. Does the partnership lose its appeal if more digital health companies sign on?
It would be interesting if you ever found a digital healthcare company that's like, "You know what? I have enough engagement with the employees that we are already contracted with. I'm good." But that doesn't happen. They all have this issue. We're not solving the user engagement issue entirely. We're only one component.
