Amazon is acquiring subscription health care provider One Medical for $3.9 billion.

Amazon wants to know everything about you!

Have you heard of One Medical? One Medical is a Telehealth provider. For a $199 annual fee, a patient can get appointments and Telehealth services, sometimes in the same day. Though Telehealth services are not mainstream, they are growing in popularity. One Medical has 188 locations with about 750,000 members.

Lets zoom out-

Why is Amazon buying this company?

1. Amazon sees the growth opportunity in Telehealth.
2. They want to compete with Apple in the health space.
3. They want your data, after all Amazon is really a logistics and marketing firm.

Is Telehealth right for you?

Just think, you have a Telehealth appointment with your primary care physician. Your physician doesn’t need to prescribe the medicine, it just shows up a couple hours later from Amazon, and it is set to auto-replenish. The possibilities are really promising.

But with all the great possibilities, there are some down sides. Do you want Amazon to have all this data on you? Amazon wants to know how much you make, what you spend every cent on, how often you spend, what are your buying triggers, what makes you go to the doctor, the conversations you have with your doctor and many more. You put all that information into a computer program, and the results could get scary. I think we will see some new regulations coming from congress in the next few years.