Amazon rolled out a new initiative on Monday to help connect people to digital health benefits that they may not know are available to them through their employer or health plan. To do so, Amazon plans to partner with digital health companies offering programs that help manage chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension, the tech giant announced at this year’s J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.
Amazon’s first partner for its new “health condition programs” is Omada Health — a San Francisco-based startup that provides virtual care for diabetes prevention, weight management, diabetes and hypertension. The market for virtual diabetes management and weight loss solutions is crowded, filled with companies like Livongo, Virta and Twin Health, but Omada CEO Sean Duffy believes his startup stood out to Amazon for good reason. It’s because about 20 million people across the country are eligible for Omada’s virtual programs, he said in an interview.
Omada has reached a large scale in terms of patient eligibility, and now Amazon is stepping in to help it enhance its scale for patient enrollment as well, Duffy explained. He doesn’t think Amazon would have been keen to invest in this collaboration with Omada if the startup hadn’t previously done the work to secure such a large group of eligible patients — the company has nearly 2,000 employer and health plan customers.
“One in 10 commercially insured adults in the U.S. have an Omada product as part of their medical benefits” Duffy declared.
When Amazon customers search for a device like a blood pressure monitor or blood glucose meter, they will see a notification alerting them that they might be eligible to join a chronic condition management program at no cost. Users can then visit the Amazon Health webpage to check if their employer or health plan has made Omada’s programs available to them. If they wish to participate, Amazon will guide them to Omada’s website to complete their enrollment.
U.S. employees leave about 30% of their total compensation on the table by not utilizing the benefits that are available to them, Amazon pointed out in its announcement. This new enrollment pathway seeks to change that by raising awareness of Omada’s cardiometabolic programs to people who may not know about their eligibility.
“I walk down the streets, and I’m thinking that a lot of people I’m seeing may have Omada — and I know they’re shopping on Amazon. So something like this could actually yield benefits to the world. I think Amazon saw the world similarly to us, and we had hit the point in our business where that kind of partnership can work,” Duffy said.
Ellen Rudolph — CEO of WellTheory, a startup that serves consumers and employers by providing virtual care for autoimmune conditions — told MedCity News in a statement that “the biggest challenge for chronic condition management solutions in a growing, saturated enterprise space is consumer awareness.”
She predicted that partnering with Amazon will open up a ton of doors for Omada in terms of distribution and letting consumers know that Omada is a benefit they have access to.
Another healthcare exec — Anu Sharma, CEO of maternity-focused startup Millie Clinic — stated that innovative partnerships like the Amazon-Omada collaboration can be “game-changing” for consumer awareness.
“A patient can now get care, prescriptions, groceries and other lifestyle aids in a single, integrated shopping experience. That is powerful,” she wrote in a statement.
Photo: AzmanJaka, Getty Images
