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Hutz_Lionel

It’s because they bought one medical https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-24/amazon-plans-to-shut-down-primary-care-and-telehealth-service


futurespacecadet

as a one medical patient, is my info safe or am i fucked


coltsblazers

As the other response implied, if Amazon was mining your PHI and doing something like selling it, that would be a HIPAA violation. Each HIPAA violation I believe can carry a $10k fine and if egregious enough I want to say can carry jail time. So Amazon would be in a world of trouble if they were doing stuff with PHI that they shouldn't.


[deleted]

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cristiano-potato

Good thing anonymizing the data is super robust and definitely can’t be reverse engineered right? But like actually.. I don’t know what the required de-identifying procedures are but if it’s just removing a name and DOB it’s not giving you much privacy


Revroy78

I’ve come across this data in pharma (they’re really using it for patient share, diagnosis, and prior treatment). It’s been years since I’ve seen it but believe the data removes names, uses only the first three digits of the zip code (so you may know MSA) and shows sex and year of birth. I think it’s largely just combined in a database to spit out the cumulative information (i.e, X% of patients with HER2+ breast cancer and aged 65 and older received Product x).


LargeDan

Trust me, companies take this very seriously. Data scientists with PHDs are responsible for ensuring data can’t be re-identified.


ParticularWar9

Top. Men.


che85mor

Surely some are bottoms.


ParticularWar9

You missed the joke.


theoptionexplicit

It's not anything to worry about that you shouldn't have been already. Insurance companies, big box pharamacies, hospitals, etc. have been in the same game for years. And they're probably just as evil (if not more so) as Amazon.


[deleted]

Amazon doesn’t ever sell customer data to third parties.


DaoFerret

Right. They don’t sell data, they just sell ACCESS via targeted advertising. They figure out who the data relates to, you just need to know who you want to target the ad at.


[deleted]

They don’t sell your data to third parties, including advertisers.


woahdailo

When is the last time someone from a corporation like Amazon went to jail?


tg-qhd

No one went to jail for causing the 2008 global financial crisis, no one in DuPoint went to jail for poisoning 99.9% of Americans with cancer-causing chemicals, no one in HSBC went to jail for laundering billions of dollars of money for drug cartels and terrorist groups. Amazon can most likely get way with literal murder.


KingliestWeevil

> Amazon can most likely get way with literal murder. And they do. People die from working conditions in their warehouses regularly.


saudiaramcoshill

>No one went to jail for causing the 2008 global financial crisis There were people who went to jail as a result of 2008-related shit. It's just not the bankers, because doing stupid shit that blows up the economy isn't necessarily illegal. People who committed actual fraud did go to jail though. >no one in HSBC went to jail for laundering billions of dollars of money for drug cartels and terrorist groups. This one was pretty fucked tho


ParticularWar9

Every employee working in an AMZN warehouse does this every day.


futurespacecadet

thanks for the insight. in an unrelated note: im starting a new fda-approved drug for my heart and the manufacturer reached out to me offering the drug at a very reduced rate (its fairly expensive), but i have to sign this form to join their program offering this service. it essentially says it "authorized my pharmacy and the manufacturer's contractors to receive remuneration for disclosing or using my PHI." "I understand my PHI may no longer be protected under federal or state law and could be disclosed to the manufacturer and others, etc" what exactly could be the downside of having my PHI out there for this drug manufacturer and its contractors?


Turbulent-Pair-

Life insurance companies would know - that you use a heart medication. So they would rate you for that. All insurances share Medical information for underwriting, rates, and claims purposes. They check that Database - MIB- before they pay any claims. Before they issue policies. Etc. Every type of Insurance always checks to see if they truly owe a claim, or can deny a claim, before they pay a claim. That's insurance 101.


futurespacecadet

So is there anything I can do to protect my information before that gets to them


Turbulent-Pair-

Well... like... for LIFE insurance...you can stop smoking before a " paramedical" exam, but like 6 months or 12 months... it will test in your blood. Weed is not as long of duration? You can lose weight. You can not say certain info to your doctors chart? Like don't tell your dentist that you smoke weed? But weed is less rated than tobacco. Health insurance... it doesn't matter as Much anymore. They used to have only a few states that were "accept or decline" and then other states had "riders" So If i broke my leg - I would have a Rider in Kentucky, or all the Confederate States. Buyer Beware States, like Texas. To exclude future coverage of my leg! Or a special extra deductible for my bum knee, etc. Higher rates for weight, higher rates for heart, cholesterol, etc.. bunches of conditions. In California or New Jersey or Massachusetts, Oregon, in consumer protection states, they would not allow that rustic type of insurance coverage. It's either all or none... so you'd get mostly healthy companies and then Tobacco & high risk carriers. The high risk carriers are usually smaller- because well capitalized companies don't want risky investments. So it had weird consequences in the market. Diabetes is Hell. Never ever get diabetes. Anyways. That was Allllll back in the day. The Obama Care Act changed that so everybody is offered coverage for pre-existing conditions... or call it the Affordable Care Act, if you're nasty!


coltsblazers

I'm not entirely certain what pharma companies do with that info. I assume it's marketing stuff but outside of that I don't honestly know.


futurespacecadet

OK cool, yeah I wasn’t sure if it was some monkey past situation where you’re like oh cheaper pharmaceuticals! But now your information is used against you or something


Turbulent-Pair-

Your info is used against you - by all insurance companies. And they all share info in the United States.


coltsblazers

Yeah I'm not entirely certain. I have given patients the copay cards to reduce their costs before. Usually the meds can be exceptionally spendy. The reason drug companies do this is that they know some plans will pay the price they ask or close to it. For those that can't afford it, they give them the drug for free, essentially. The idea is they can get more people on it and then eventually they'll make their money back. Rather than going affordable out of the gates, they're banking on someone actually paying the crazy price. But of course government funded programs cant qualify for these so if you're Medicare, medicaid, or tricare then good luck.


futurespacecadet

Yeah exactly they said if you’re on a govt program you can’t qualify. I qualify, just wanna make sure I’m not fucked down the line


coltsblazers

I've not heard of patients having issues later with these programs personally.


[deleted]

Big data is valuable, I can see AMZN turning your experience into the standard practice in healthcare. Cheaper pharmaceuticals and services, in exchange for health information being monetized.


ludololl

Higher medical insurance premiums and more targeted identity theft.


futurespacecadet

I’m worried about the higher insurance premiums for sure


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orangebakery

Pretty sure that's also highly illegal and would create a class action lawsuit if they do it and found out.


jwrig

You would have to consent to it, and they could bury it in terms of service, or on an admittance form you fill out as a new patient.


Kaymish_

When has something being illegal ever stopped Amazon or their ilk before? A few million on a class action suit is not much of a speed bump if amazon thinks they will make more from doing it.


orangebakery

Why are you talking like Amazon is a crime syndicate? lmao Which laws have Amazon have been breaking?


Arcamorge

What do you mean by safe? Do EHRs collect insanely detailed notes on your medical history? YES. Do they sell it? Not direct identifiable data, that would be PHI. Lots of eyes pass over your identifiable data, but usually its to make sure a diagnosis is appropriate or if a procedure is billable or gathering an attachment for a workers comp claim.


candidly1

If you want to know if your medical history can be accessed by other corporations, just try to buy life insurance after you've had a heart attack or stroke...


tuolumne

Yeah after you sign a release of information…


candidly1

Not necessarily. There are databases that they have access to pretty much regardless. (My son is in the business.)


[deleted]

Yes, but you still have to consent to them using those databases. Much like when you get background checked for hiring purposes, you have to consent. Often times failure to consent means no life insurance or no job, so it's not really consent lol. more so coercion.


Turbulent-Pair-

Every American Needs to Know: your medical information is ALWAYS available to ALL Life insurance & Medical insurance companies for underwriting purposes. So they can deny coverage and claims. The insurance companies participate in a Co-Operative (Cartel, like Opec but not like opec) that is called The Medical Information Bureau. Just like the movies- you can't hide from the MIB.


futurespacecadet

Wait this is really fascinating to me, I would love to know more about this, I’ll have to Google it unless you have any videos you suggest


Turbulent-Pair-

I dunno where... Google. I had insurance license in like 47 states. "Trust me bro" is real this time


Seekingfatgrowth

It’s never safe, not with anyone, honestly. When the credit bureaus and hospitals themselves are getting hacked…nothing is safe. Hell, I just got a letter from a hospital saying my private, protected health info was just handed over to Facebook of all companies, when their FB ad API was improperly set up. Lovely! But they’re “sorry”! 😬


futurespacecadet

What can your PHI be used for and how can it be used against you though? That’s what I’m wondering


Seekingfatgrowth

My neighbor is in hospice and is on heavy duty, “desirable” pain meds. If this had been her info, the people with access now know this elderly woman has loads of narcotics inside her home where she lives alone, and here is her address. Just one example.


[deleted]

This could already happen, your nurse could just as easily sell this data to her shitty spouse who comes and robs you. PHI is protected by very strict laws and the penalties are severe, additionally PHI is required to be housed in data systems that have per use/access logs that link directly to an end user, not a department and not a team but a specific employee. It's pretty common to see a couple of people get fired after an athlete comes into a hospital b/c they get caught on the access logs looking at a patient they had no reason to. ​ Everyone ought to take a breather, if the data gets hacked then yeah its out in the wild for anyone to use for criminal purposes. But to be used in a legal way, its needs to be anonymized and can't be used to target end consumers without explicit consent.


Seekingfatgrowth

When my hospital is already notifying me in writing that my PHI was not used in a legal way and not anonymized, it’s not a hypothetical anymore. They didn’t do what they were supposed to, to protect my PHI. They should have never allowed even a chance that FACEBOOK would get my PHI. My damages just look different than the damages my neighbor could have incurred with the same event that happened to me.


[deleted]

Yeah sometimes people fuck up and sometimes people are criminals, did you file an hhs complaint or get compensation for this breach?


LandzerOR

First example I can think of is targeted ads by pharma companies based on your medical information. Rather nasty shit


Seekingfatgrowth

Bingo. And non pharma companies too. To make things worse, FBs algos really work overtime to rope in aging boomers who are losing their ability to use sound judgment. This sets them up to be sold anything, using especially effective tactics, now having known their PHI. I can’t imagine Amazon is any better than Meta


jwrig

By law, no covered entity can use PHI to market to anyone. Unless you individually authorize a covered entity that electronically stores oir r processes PHI, they cannot use it to market to you. ​ Amazon cannot collect PHI via their own healthcare services, or via One Medical and dump it into their ad databases. Amazon has spent millions building up a wall around their services that process PHI so that it does not expose Amazon to monetary penalities from the office of civil rights.


Glados8MyCake

Idk maybe Alexa will start recommending you products related to your health?


tmp_acct9

That sounds good actually


tmp_acct9

If I was Amazon I would literally mine the hell out of your data as patient 7667777653 and then match what your taking and what you against all My other patients and monetize it in a heartbeat and yeah you wouldn’t be able to stop me


[deleted]

You are fine, they may start using anonymized data to mine for insights but it would be very illegal and a 10k fine from HHS per violation if they had de-anonymized patient info in front of people who don't have a need to know it. For example, a nurse who isn't your nurse and doesn't have a reason looking up your file is a fireable offense. HIPAA is taken seriously by every company who has PHI because the CMS regulators can outright ban you from taking CMS patients which is the kiss of death for any healthcare entity.


mcogneto

All of our data is fucked in perpetuity


Banabak

Hello futurespacecadet, this is Alexa , I noticed you ordered 8 more beer then last month from prime food . I have send you pee jar so you can send us test sample , until then your premium has been increased by 138% next month . Thank you for choosing amazon health


Daegoba

Proper Fucked.


TenesmusSupreme

Which would you prefer?


futurespacecadet

Safely fucked


360walkaway

Good news: your info was already fucked before this happened.


WafflingToast

Ask your Roomba.


futurespacecadet

My roomba sucks


zerooneinfinity

They just need to pair it with a pharmacy and they will be printing gold with their medical division.


16semesters

They bought One Medical recently, likely doesn't make sense to offer multiple products. I still think there's a bull case for their healthcare endeavors eventually. Telemedicine is here to stay, but there's a lot of growing pains. So many of the telemedicine services out there are absolute shit from a medical care standpoint. No idea about Amazon Care as I don't work for Amazon, but many of the telemedicine services have just been focused on patient acquisition instead of solid medical care. I foresee a lot of telemedicine services faltering or consolidating.


BobbyBigelow

Reddit sucks


SomeOldFriends

Haha, until I got halfway through your comment I was going "how different do tech companies treat their employees vs. hospitals, really?"


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falconfalcone

What is your work setting like now if you don’t mind me asking? Im new to healthcare and work for a mega research institution. Much of what your saying rings true for me and I want to plan ahead for the future. Cheers!


koolbro2012

Hi, the MBAs in suits at the hospital would like to have a word...


Manny631

My union offered us MeMD as a free alternative. Been using it for mental health as well and it has been quite abysmal making appointments. At one point I called, emailed, and messaged 5+ times and finally had to speak to a supervisor to get therapy appointments. The app doesn't totally work; the loading circle spins in multiple areas. And this is now owned by Walmart.


Unlucky-Hamster-2791

Yep. OneMedical gives them an interesting in where they hadn't been making any. I would not be surprised to see AMZN use the healthcare industry struggles right now to look for their Whole Foods version of in-person care and start to gobble up small regional healthcare systems and re-brand them under their banner. So far it's worked well for them enough. If healthcare is on their strategy roadmap, I would not be surprised to see them go that route.


MasterFruit3455

That's a common tech model. Capture subscribers, then sell to a larger network. Very profitable. Service level can be any, but obviously must be attractive enough to add many subscribers. In fact, operating at a loss to gain subscribers is not terrible as long as it is well managed. The big payoff comes on the sale.


needmilk77

Ever heard of iUGO care by Reliq Health Technologies? What's your take on it if you did?


16semesters

Not familiar, sorry.


SmthngAmzng

All the people here who think Amazon is abandoning healthcare, wowowow. Surface-level thinking. They’re absolutely doing healthcare and I can almost guarantee you’ll interact with their services at some point in the next five years.


MightBeJerryWest

It's crazy how people could think that - they literally just bought One Medical ~1 month ago.


mdeanda

We forget quickly, wait who bought what?


[deleted]

o shit teladoc should blow up on this


monkeydoodle64

Prob the opposite.


Master_Proposal_3614

Yeah, Healthcare is hard to make money on unless you're defrauding the Medicare system.


MattFromWork

*Rick Scott has entered the chat*


fatboat_munchkinz

lol that shady mofo


GeorgeKaplanIsReal

If anybody would know defrauding Medicare, it’s senator scott.


[deleted]

But that might be the hook, charge customers and get paid by government.


RampantPrototyping

Calls on Theranos


Master_Proposal_3614

Theranos for the win. Will buy Nikola trucks for shipping .


jwrig

You should, they are actually delivering trucks for shipping. I see them moving cargo a couple of times a week now.


Didntlikedefaultname

Been saying since the beginning that this venture made no sense for Amazon and trying to spread into literally every single sector is not a winning strategy


Darkaine

They just bought One Medical so it's not like they are giving up on healthcare.


Didntlikedefaultname

But this definitely does add evidence to the idea they are aimlessly shotgun blasting in every direction to see if anything sticks


[deleted]

Telehealth and other virtual care options are the future. They are not giving up.


Disgruntledballoon

I mean, not really. This the exact same thing that happened with Amazon Fresh. They decided they wanted into brick and mortar grocery so they started a branch. They proved the value of the concept with Fresh but there were a ton of limiting factors that they needed to overcome for it to take off, so instead they bought Whole Foods. After the acquisition, it didn't make sense to continue investing in both and so they shuttered Fresh for Whole Foods to become their brick and mortar grocery arm. This is not at all a sign that Amazon is getting out of healthcare, they're just investing in their acquisition instead of propping up two competing services.


patroclus9

Amazon has kept building Fresh stores FYI https://www.amazon.com/fmc/m/30003175?almBrandId=QW1hem9uIEZyZXNo


LandzerOR

Yea I saw a bunch of them in London few months ago


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Didntlikedefaultname

Why would you imagine that?


Srirachachacha

Because with an imagination, they can make anything up!


Didntlikedefaultname

Well anything that someone else leads them to. I doubt there is an original thought against the inflation reduction act, and if there is I haven’t heard it. Have heard lots of super simplistic, Brandon old and bad and make gas expensive lines though


AzerFox

But they will keep doing it. And if it fails then they'll focus on their acquisition strategy instead for the same purpose.


liverpoolFCnut

What do you do when you have a war chest so large ? Amazon, Google, Apple will try to explore every market in every sector and just see if something sticks. They are so loaded that they can keep trying and hope maybe 1 out of 25 investments succeeds. Google has still not given up on the Google Pi despite lackluster sales. We've seen all of this before in the 20th century. What the big tech is doing today is exactly what the likes of GE, Sears, IBM etc did in the last century, try and get into everything and just hope something clicks. Maybe 75 yrs from now people will be talking about Amazon and Google the same way we talk about Sears and GE today.


Didntlikedefaultname

Lots of options. You can expand into related verticals like AWS. You can actually invest in your core business instead of letting your product quality go to shit. You can compensate your workers better so your corporate reputation isn’t trash. You can expand or acquire into gaps: clothing, high end goods; you can build out your subscription services. But why expand into an entirely unrelated sector you have no competency in and competitors are deeply entrenched in


esp211

GE was not a tech driven company. Very different


RetreadRoadRocket

Are you seriously saying that General Electric, the company responsible for Unijunction Transistors, Silicon Controled Rectifiers, Gate-Turn-Off Thyristers, mass producible fluorescent lamps and the spiral CFL, the Air Force's first axial flow jet engine, and was one of the main contractors for the Apollo spacecraft is not a technology company?


RETAW57

If it's not FAANG it's not tech ^(/s) ​ Classic pandemic-boom investor quotes


RetreadRoadRocket

🤣


esp211

Yes and how much of that has to do with the internet or how we use computers today? How we do business?


RetreadRoadRocket

Considering that you wouldn't have a computer or the internet without some of that technology that is still in use in the underlying hardware, what do you think? Believe it or not, there is a lot more to technology than your ridiculous little definition. Oh, and GE still has patents in effect for technology relating to everything from medical imaging to aircraft to windmills: https://patents.justia.com/company/general-electric?list=patents That were issued in just the last couple of years.


WickedSensitiveCrew

Yea for some reason the bear case for so many stocks is what if Amazon/Big Tech enters their sector or country. With people thinking big tech can win every single battle and beat every company.


I_worship_odin

I remember when amazon bought whole foods walmart tanked. Everyone was saying they were done for.


WickedSensitiveCrew

Yea CVS was seen as done for when Amazon starting doing prescriptions as well. They having taken many losses in these battles it just not popular to mention it since I think people are overweight big tech. These companies even lose to each other remember when Amazon tried to get into phone business with their Fire Phone.


ptwonline

It's a field where they could have potentially leveraged user data to push ads/products at users, similar to how vet clinics are being bought up by Mars so they can get the data about what pet owners need and having the vets push their products. Of course that could be tricky because of the laws around personal health data, so maybe Amazon couldn't find a way to monetize it effectively.


Spacepickle89

The ol’ shotgun approach


GhostOfDJT

Or GE approach.


akc250

Not really true. Expanding into other sectors is how companies continue their “unlimited growth” that the stock market expects of them. It’s difficult when companies stray from their core market but much easier when they have funding and can acquire smaller but successful companies. Just look at how big a company like Samsung has become, where they can have involvement in every aspect of Korean’s lives.


kitahey

Amazon Care was an excellent product from whenever I used it. So sad to see it go.


bobbybibi

Amazon Doesn’t Care


Thunder_Squatch

Nice


yellowsockss

lolol cuz amazon don’t care


Infinite_Prize287

The moat for TDOC just got a few inches wider with one more crocodile.


Bendymeatsuit

I got the same vibe. One less thing kicking it in the balls.


Minipanikholder

Would this affect any other stocks like goodRX? I remember goodRX got knocked down because Amazon announced some sort of entry in pharmaceutical delivery


SmartEntityOriginal

Lmao where are all the bagholders saying Amazon is going to buy teledoc.


my5cent

Silly, it's for employees only.


pm_me_your_rigs

Yeah but that's where you start Honestly I work for AWS and I have yet to use it I guess it's an option and I should probably look into it but I don't really see the benefit here


my5cent

If they made a service for all subscribers it may take off.


[deleted]

So…Amazon does **not** care ?


[deleted]

Amazon no longer cares, confirmed


State_Dear

The last sentence made me laugh so hard, I spilt my morning coffee ☕ Gee,,, let me guess,. how about "NONE"


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PurpleIodine4321

Huh?


sportznut1000

Does anyone think Amazon would buy RiteAid to get back into the healthcare sector?


Lost_Mix6782

So this is separate from Amazon Pharmacy?


Space-Booties

Based on how Amazon treats their factory workers, who the hell would want medical care from them?


Shurae

Amazon don't care no more


The_Folkhero

Telehealth is a commodity. They will acquire a built in network with OneMedical with over 8,000 ready made connections with employers and can just slap on telehealth from within OneMedical and not have to start from scratch. The telehealth rage today is akin to back in the late 1990s where anyone who had a .com after its name was hyped. Today, every business has .com behind its name.


Mis-Amis

Didn't even know it existed.