Amazon worked with Crossover Health to launch 17 employee healthcare clinics nationwide, part of its major push into the $3.8 trillion healthcare industry
- Amazon added new employee health clinics in two new regions, bringing its total to 17 nationwide.
- They serve Amazon workers and their families and are open longer to accommodate workers' schedules.
- Amazon is diving deep into healthcare through wearables, prescription drugs, and primary care.
Amazon is adding new employee healthcare centers in Michigan and California as part of its larger effort make accessing healthcare easier for its workers.
Last year, Amazon partnered with Crossover Health, a healthcare company that offers in-person and virtual care, to open employee healthcare centers nationwide. The initial pledge was 20 healthcare centers, but Crossover Health announced Thursday that they have completed their plan, scaling the total number back to 17 locations spread across Texas, Arizona, Kentucky, California, and Michigan.
The newest clinics, which are called Neighborhood Health Centers, are opening near Detroit, Michigan, and in the San Bernardino and Moreno Valley regions in California.
The clinics are not open to the public - they are intended to serve Amazon employees and their families and get them to take advantage of their healthcare benefits, which can be difficult given their work schedule, Derek Rubino, senior program manager of workplace health and safety special programs at Amazon, told The Detroit News.
"It's not always conducive to your traditional 9-5, Monday through Friday clinic," he said. "So we took these health centers and we looked at where our people lived and work and we brought it right to them and we could tailor it to how an Amazonian works since it's not open to the public."
The clinics will be open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., according to The Detroit News. With the latest rollout, over 75% of Amazon's employees are located within 10 miles of one of the healthcare centers.
Eventually, workers will be able to get their COVID-19 vaccine at the clinics.
The new healthcare centers are one piece of Amazon's broader plan to push into the $3.8 trillion healthcare industry. Amazon produced a health-tracking wearables, has pushed into the prescription drug business, and is building Amazon Care, which would provide primary care to employees at other companies, not just Amazon.
Jeff Becker, a healthcare analyst at Forrester, told Insider's Blake Dodge last November, that Amazon's moves into healthcare, particularly initiatives like Amazon Care, follow a standard route for the company: build tools that solve problems internally, then turn them into external products or services.
"They're solving for healthcare costs the same way they were solving for infrastructure," Becker said. "And if they are able to do it, they will commercialize that. They would never just sit on it."
Blake Dodge contributed reporting for this story.