Amazon Working On Internal Employee Health Clinics

Months after announcing plans to work with other major companies to bring down healthcare costs, Amazon is apparently looking to develop its own clinics for employees. The e-commerce behemoth will start testing its new approach to healthcare in Seattle, where CEO Jeff Bezos founded Amazon and keeps its main headquarters, CNBC reported.

Initially, it will be a pilot program for certain employees who work at Amazon HQ, run by a small staff of doctors. By next year, Amazon would ideally broaden the offering to more employees. Eventually, as Amazon has done with its Amazon Go convenience stores, the company could begin offering service to non-employees, speculated Michael Yang, a health investor at Comcast Ventures.

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase announced they would combine forces to figure out how to make employee healthcare less costly in January. The effort will take the form of an independent organization that draws resources from the three other companies that founded it. The initial announcement promised the venture would be free of the profit motive that can make healthcare expensive in the United States.

"By bringing together three of the world's leading organizations into this new and innovative construct, the group hopes to draw on its combined capabilities and resources to take a fresh approach to these critical matters," Bezos said in a statement at the time.

Amazon would not be the first tech company to tackle employee care with internal clinics. Apple started staffing clinics for its employees and their families called "AC Wellness Network" in February.

There are a few questions worth considering regarding Amazon’s health initiative. The company is beefing up its remote employment operation, posting more than 200 job listings for full-time staffers in places like Michigan and Costa Rica. It remains to be seen how these employees could take advantage of employee clinics without living in Seattle or other major cities Amazon opens clinics in.

As CNBC pointed out, Amazon has a significant number of warehouse workers who also work outside of Seattle. Additionally, their jobs have heightened risk of a workplace injury that is not present in an office environment. Amazon has been accused of poor working conditions at its fulfillment centers; even if those issues have been cleaned up, those employees will need high quality, affordable healthcare.