Amazon acquires primary care tech provider One Medical for $3.9B

Amazon.com announced that it intends to acquire One Medical, a primary care provider that leverages in-person, virtual, and digital interactions in its services, for $3.9 billion.

Amazon’s interest in healthcare and being a significant player in that industry is taking one giant step forward today. Amazon is so far not saying much at all about its plans for One Medical under the wing of Amazon. It is not clear, for example, if it will remain an independent company or whether it will be integrated into Amazon’s more comprehensive healthcare strategy. The cloud and e-commerce giant has been making several inroads into the field under its own steam, including launching an online pharmacy and building an on-demand healthcare services platform.

But the rise of services such as One Medical’s notionally fit very closely into a broader vision of digital services—replacing those same services delivered by more traditional, and often analog, means—as played out by Amazon across several other verticals.

One Medical works on both a direct-to-customers model and by selling services via companies in their health plans for employees. It has over 8,000 organizations as B2B2C clients currently.

Google and others backed the firm during its phase as a startup, and it has had its share of ups and downs.