"The end game, or meta strategy, is to make a profit from Amazon’s employee benefits obligation — which Griswold said has proven to be a massive operational expense that’s a drain on the bottom line — by selling this solution to others in the free market."Bruce Shutan Employee Benefit Advisor Feb 1st 2019.
It is predicted that Amazon will acquire a telemedicine company with which it will integrate the popular Alexa artificial intelligence product, negotiate contracts with doctors and leverage its enormous scale to slash the company’s fully-insured healthcare costs.
Amazon’s healthcare tab, which includes an estimated $675 million annual drug spend, also could explain why the company announced last June that it would acquire the online pharmacy Pill Pack for a reported less than $1 billion price tag.
Therein lies a lesson for forward-thinking benefit brokers and advisers according to Griswold, co-founder of the Ascend Summit and managing director of NextGen Benefits Mastermind. He said brokers "can out-maneuver Amazon to grow market share and their bottom line. The key is embracing a host of innovative self-insured solutions, transparency and accountability, as well as agreeing to performance-based fees that align with their employer clients’ cost-containment objectives.
“Everything they are doing you can do for your clients,They can’t move the needle fixing billing. They can move the needle with the strategies you have learned.”
” he added. “
Reminded me to look at the Altus Consulting's article "Amazon’s Insurance Opportunity - 10 areas Amazon can disrupt".
Industry observers have been speculating about Amazon’s intentions with its Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase healthcare partnership from day one. What’s clear is that the online retailer will initially focus on taming its own rising employee healthcare costs before taking its approach to the marketplace where it hopes to mine new revenue streams.
https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/news/whats-driving-amazons-healthcare-partnership