One Medical is facing new scrutiny for allegedly providing questionable talking points for its employees to use in response to anyone with concerns about previous reports that its call center had not appropriately escalated a number of urgent patient calls that should have received immediate medical attention. Instead, the patients were scheduled for office visits. As reported by the Washington Post, One Medical instructed staff to tell those who expressed concern over the controversy that patients actually did receive the care they needed. In response, Amazon, which owns One Medical, acknowledged that there is room for improvement in the call center and that some cases were mishandled. It also noted that out of nearly 200,000 patient interactions per month, the identified cases represent a small fraction. The call center in question is partly staffed by contractors without medical qualifications, according to Post reports, placing attention on Amazon’s ownership and what it means for patient care.
Going way back: One Medical was founded in 2005, and Amazon acquired the company for $4 billion in February 2023. Read a detailed history of One Medical from the 2016 JUCM archives: One Medical: Reimaging Primary Care Around The Consumer