Amazon Launches New Health Care Benefit for Prime Members for $9 a Month

Tsing

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What's better than free two-day shipping and a streaming service? Cheaper health care options, it seems, as Amazon has announced that it is adding a new health care benefit for Prime members, and not only that, it will only cost $9 a month (or $99 a year).

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Telecare is useless. I tried to get help during covid with lack of sleep and all I got was a long goodbye.
 
My mind jumps to "Why would Amazon do this?"
And then... a reason to have your health care info.
Me no likely.
 
theblackangus said:
My mind jumps to "Why would Amazon do this?"
And then... a reason to have your health care info.
Me no likely.
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They already have it, don't worry too much. All the relevant players have it.
 
Riccochet said:
I've had the complete opposite experience with telehealth.
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Well, idk the doctor was saying about limits on ylthis and that, and I was like well screw you then. Sure I guess I couod have had covid diagnosed over the webcam, but whatever, big effin deal.
 
Uvilla said:
Well, idk the doctor was saying about limits on ylthis and that, and I was like well screw you then. Sure I guess I couod have had covid diagnosed over the webcam, but whatever, big effin deal.
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You used it for the wrong reasons. Anything that requires labs is not going to work. Got a sinus or urinary tract infection? Use telehealth. You need blood work or some other type of test done? Don't.
 
Uvilla said:
They already have it, don't worry too much. All the relevant players have it.
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If they have it w/o consent then that is a whole ball of wax they don't want.
And they certainly have never had my consent.
None of my medical goes to google either.
BTW - Im not saying they don't have it, but this would legitimize them having it, which is a no-go for me.
 
theblackangus said:
If they have it w/o consent then that is a whole ball of wax they don't want.
And they certainly have never had my consent.
None of my medical goes to google either.
BTW - Im not saying they don't have it, but this would legitimize them having it, which is a no-go for me.
Click to expand...

I have news for you. The vast majority of EMR systems are hosted on AWS and Google.
 
My current healthcare plan offers free telehealth when you use their portal for it. One of my employees took them up on that a couple years ago, then received a bill for using an out of network provider (doctor) for telehealth.
 
theblackangus said:
If they have it w/o consent then that is a whole ball of wax they don't want.
And they certainly have never had my consent.
None of my medical goes to google either.
BTW - Im not saying they don't have it, but this would legitimize them having it, which is a no-go for me.
Click to expand...
No consent needed. Its called the MIB, don't worry, they know everything about you. You know all those codes that your doctor uses, they have all those. Yeah, maybe not specific results as in your hemoglobin was 14.0 in the year 2020. But really everything else they have, all the diagnostic codes likely all the test ordered etc and prescriptions.
You are protecting nothing, you are paranoid about nothing, all the wrong people have the most information already, lawfully style.
Sure, of course a darkweb leak about your actual bonifide results might happen, yes, and that would suck a lot, that someone somewhere might know you suffer from recurrent chamydia or whaeltever, or had testicular cancer or whatver, painful embarrassing, absolutely, also useless.
I think I would take back all this I am saying if you have been 100% cash all your life for healthcare, but even then I would not be completely sure about this.
Again, each and every relevant player that cna affect your life, your costs for insurance, life insurance health insurance, already know you like a book.
 
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Riccochet said:
You used it for the wrong reasons. Anything that requires labs is not going to work. Got a sinus or urinary tract infection? Use telehealth. You need blood work or some other type of test done? Don't.
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Idk, doc I need help with sleep doesn't sound like it should need labs, could have give me script for those and a second telehealth appointment for that but no. A UTI needs labs to be certain, actually assuming one by video is risky, riskier than here some sleeping pills. Excluding back pain, which is yet another dimension of other problems you can't reliably differentiate via video, it burns when I pee, requires a culture to better target the bacteria, and possibly exclude gc/ chamidia and so on. Telecare is mostly useless, I mean, if it works for viagra, well cool, I guess I am in for that why not?
 
The problem is... someone somewhere is going to build a loophole in where medical insurance companies can charge you a rate for insurance based on RISK. Even if you're on a corporate plan. That's why they give 'AMAZING' discounts on corporate plans as long as you get the exam or get the medical check-in done.

Sure it's to limit your exposure... but really... it's so they can adjust their billing to say.. You have a company risk of xxx percentage so your cost is xx,xxx,xxx dollars a year for your employees.
 
Grimlakin said:
The problem is... someone somewhere is going to build a loophole in where medical insurance companies can charge you a rate for insurance based on RISK. Even if you're on a corporate plan. That's why they give 'AMAZING' discounts on corporate plans as long as you get the exam or get the medical check-in done.

Sure it's to limit your exposure... but really... it's so they can adjust their billing to say.. You have a company risk of xxx percentage so your cost is xx,xxx,xxx dollars a year for your employees.
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Pretty sure that's exactly how they do it now.
 
Brian_B said:
Pretty sure that's exactly how they do it now.
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Well, it kind of depends. Smaller employers are pretty much all in "community rated" plans where Obamacare prevents them from charging based on risk - they can use age and zip code and that's it for determining your rates (and that's what my other business is doing).

Larger employers usually find it more cost effective to do some form of level funded plan - essentially they buy a backstop insurance policy to cover unexpected yuge claims and pay the employee claims out of pocket that's administered by the insurance company. The employees won't know what the back end of their insurance is. My other company doesn't qualify for this based on risk according to a couple of insurers (had to fill out some health questionnaires to apply).

Now, costs on the community funded plans will vary a lot based on age. A 60 year old on my plan costs more than twice per month than a 40 year old. I think the legal boundaries on it allow up to a 3x differential between oldest and youngest on the price schedule.
 
Riccochet said:
I have news for you. The vast majority of EMR systems are hosted on AWS and Google.
Click to expand...
And that data should not be accessible by AWS or Google for thier viewing.
The EMR systems providers need to have encryption on that type of data that is not accessible by anyone.
HIPAA type rules.
 
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Uvilla said:
No consent needed. Its called the MIB, don't worry, they know everything about you. You know all those codes that your doctor uses, they have all those. Yeah, maybe not specific results as in your hemoglobin was 14.0 in the year 2020. But really everything else they have, all the diagnostic codes likely all the test ordered etc and prescriptions.
You are protecting nothing, you are paranoid about nothing, all the wrong people have the most information already, lawfully style.
Sure, of course a darkweb leak about your actual bonifide results might happen, yes, and that would suck a lot, that someone somewhere might know you suffer from recurrent chamydia or whaeltever, or had testicular cancer or whatver, painful embarrassing, absolutely, also useless.
I think I would take back all this I am saying if you have been 100% cash all your life for healthcare, but even then I would not be completely sure about this.
Again, each and every relevant player that cna affect your life, your costs for insurance, life insurance health insurance, already know you like a book.
Click to expand...
I am not referring to things like billing codes etc. I am referring to actual results.
I will say Im not sure I have heard the MIB acronym, what is that?

There is some motive here, its not free to amazon and they are just bundling it to prime making it "free" to subscribers.
 
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theblackangus said:
And that data should not be accessible by AWS or Google for thier viewing.
The EMR systems providers need to have encryption on that type of data that is not accessible by anyone.
HIPAA type rules.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'm well aware, I manage datacenters that house over 50M patient records.

I can tell you this. AWS and Google have to sign BA agreements for HIPAA compliance. They may not directly access PHI, but they are also not restricted from it either. And them being exposed to it is not considered a breach since they are considered Business Associates.

What I'm getting at is simple. It's in their datacenters. They're both in the business of marketing. I'm sure you can put two and two together here.
 
Riccochet said:
Yeah, I'm well aware, I manage datacenters that house over 50M patient records.

I can tell you this. AWS and Google have to sign BA agreements for HIPAA compliance. They may not directly access PHI, but they are also not restricted from it either. And them being exposed to it is not considered a breach since they are considered Business Associates.

What I'm getting at is simple. It's in their datacenters. They're both in the business of marketing. I'm sure you can put two and two together here.
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I work for a very similar highly regulated industry, I am very sure that your personal info is not something Google or MS can get info about from our cloud environments. If this was found to happen there would be very heavy fines. Regulated data must have strict controls around access that is audited on a regular basis. Business partners need to have a recognized need to see any of that type of data, and its not something that is required because the data is in someones cloud. That is also not something that can be shared w/o consent. The clouds need to be certified to handle various types of regulated data, as they are required to provide controls around physical and logical access to data they may host. If they were found to be looking at that data w/o a pee-defined business need they would be in trouble. Various Gov Cloud implementations are a similar example, because the data is hosted in the cloud does not mean the providers can just look at classified data because they host it.
 
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