Amazon's fledgling medical-care service is approaching big health insurers, including Aetna, in an attempt to persuade them to pay for it, but it's st

Amazon is trying to persuade Aetna and other health plans to cover its medical-care service, but it stumbled out of the gate

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2021-07-07 22:30:07

Amazon's fledgling medical-care service is approaching big health insurers, including Aetna, in an attempt to persuade them to pay for it, but it's struggling to get some of them on board.

Securing health-insurance coverage would be a crucial milestone for Amazon Care as it seeks to expand to more people and more companies across the US. Right now, Amazon Care works with big companies that pay it directly, including Amazon itself, Precor, and a few others.

Amazon Care has approached Aetna, which is owned by CVS Health, and several regional insurers like Premera Blue Cross to join their networks as a covered benefit, three people familiar with the matter told Insider. They were not authorized to discuss Amazon's plans on the record.

Private health insurers wield immense power in the $3.8 trillion US healthcare system. They determine which providers people can see, while making it more costly to access others.

Amazon's decision to try to work with these gatekeepers signals that it has ambitions to work with a broader variety of customers.

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