Amazon Care will soon be spreading its wings in a nationwide expansion. I’m Jeff Lagasse with Healthcare Finance News, and we’ll take a look at that and other big developments in this week’s Top Stories.
It’s been a rumor for months, but retail giant Amazon confirmed this week that it will be expanding its Amazon Care app-based services to its employees and to other companies across the U.S. over the course of the summer. At the same time, its in-person service will expand to Washington, Baltimore and other cities in the coming months. HealthcareITNews reports (https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/amazon-confirms-nationwide-expansion-telehealth-services) that up until now, Amazon Care’s primary and urgent care services have only been available to the company’s employees in Washington state. The costs of virtual care are subsidized by Amazon for employees and their dependents, while in-home visits incur a fee.
Telehealth provider Doctor on Demand announced plans this week to merge with clinical navigation platform Grand Rounds to form a new integrated virtual health company. In MobiHealthNews, (https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/doctor-demand-merges-grand-round-form-new-virtual-health-care-company) we see that this comes less than a year after Grand Rounds landed $175 million in funding to fuel clinical navigation and virtual primary care development, and Doctor on Demand scored $75 million in Series C funding. The combined entity will use Grand Rounds' clinical navigation and patient advocacy tools and Doctor on Demand's telehealth offering. Specifically, the new company will be focused on primary care, specialty care, chronic care management and behavioral health.
Finally this week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is releasing new funding aimed at helping schools reopen and to expand access to COVID-19 testing and treatments among underserved populations. According to Healthcare Finance News (https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/biden-administration-invests-expanding-covid-19-testing-and-treatments-schools-and-underserved), HHS plans to invest more than $12 billion to expand COVID-19 testing, as well as $150 million to increase access to monoclonal antibody therapeutic treatments for patients in vulnerable communities. This advances two key objectives in President Biden's American Rescue Plan: safely reopening schools and supporting communities struggling in the wake of COVID-19.
I’m Jeff Lagasse with Healthcare Finance News, and this has been Top Stories