Next up from Amazon: Prescription price shopping and at-home medical tests
Ever wish you could price shop for medications as easily as you can for products on Amazon? Well, now you can.
It’s been a busy spring for Amazon, first with the national rollout of its Amazon Care program, then its foray into insurance and even fintech. Earlier this week, its new worker health and safety program made headlines. And now? First up, two new features to help consumers take control of their prescription drug costs.
Regular shoppers of Amazon are already well-versed in comparison shopping, a habit the e-commerce giant wants to apply to prescription drugs with its Amazon Prime prescription savings plan. Users can search for a medication via Amazon pharmacy and more than 60,000 participating pharmacies to find the best price.
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Amazon is also integrating a new feature that will show members their insurance co-pay before they order a medication. “We’ve heard from customers who want to try Amazon Pharmacy but need to first understand their co-pay price,” the company wrote in a blog post. “ Now we can provide that information quickly, efficiently, and entirely online—no need to pick-up the phone to call a pharmacy or insurance provider.”
But what about all of the other things you’d want to pick up on your trip to the pharmacy? Amazon’s working on that, too, with the development of its new Diagnostics brand. According to Business Insider, the new program will allow consumers to order at-home medical tests, starting with COVID-19 tests before branching into other tests. Sources told Insider that the program is still in early development and could be delayed or canceled, but given Amazon’s other successes in the health care sector, it’s worth keeping a close eye on.
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