Amazon has now expanded its tentacles further into the healthcare sphere, officially launching its Amazon Pharmacy. The e-commerce behemoth’s latest offering comes two years after acquiring online pharmacy and prescription-packet organiser PillPack in a $753-million deal.

It’s certainly big news for the US healthcare market, and it also gives Amazon firmer footing beside other big players in the US pharmacy field, such as CVS Health Corp and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. But what will this news mean for the international health insurance community?

Pricing transparency in a ‘confusing’ system

Amazon notes that it’s online pharmacy – which will be available in 45 states at first (excluding Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana and Minnesota) – accepts ‘most’ insurance plans (although these are likely all national), and also plans to give customers the option of speaking to a pharmacist for advice. Amazon Pharmacy, which the company says is aimed at customers ‘managing multiple daily medications for chronic conditions’, allows consumers to purchase prescription medicine online, either with their insurance or without, via a price-transparent system (Amazon will list the price of the medication).

Amazon Pharmacy’s Vice-President and Co-Founder TJ Parker claims that the new offering ‘brings Amazon’s customer obsession’ (which Parker says is putting customers first) to an industry ‘that can be inconvenient and confusing’.

Overseas patients to be lured by Prime benefits?

It’s unclear yet whether international patient assistance will be directly affected, as this will depend on whether or not international insurance plans are accepted by Amazon; but Hospitals & Healthcare wonders whether this new offering may have the potential to disrupt international patient medical assistance in another way. Amazon may not offer international health insurance (yet), but it does offer Prime – and this is a service that members across the world subscribe to. Amazon claims that Prime members will be able to save ‘up to 80-per-cent off generic and 40 per cent off brand-name medications when paying without insurance’, and will also get free two-day delivery on orders.

There certainly seems to be some incentive here for consumers, nay patients, to forego the somewhat (and perhaps only minutely) longer processes involved in obtaining prescription medication overseas through assistance services, if they can get a two-day delivery from Amazon (at only 20 per cent of the price). No doubt they will still require relevant authorisation from their doctor though, and no doubt, certain medications will still be harder to get hold of in select destinations. A development worth keeping an eye on perhaps.