Amazon continues making moves in their employee health space, today announcing the launch of a pilot program with Crossover Health that will give its local employees access to local health centers. 

The pilot will start in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and will be opened to Amazon employees and their families. Employees can visit the centers for primary care, chronic care, prescription medications, vaccinations, behavioral health services, physical therapy and other health-related services.

While the main bulk of the care will be done in person, Crossover Health also has a virtual aspect. 

“Now it’s more important than ever to make care available through multiple channels and across the full continuum. Our advanced primary care model will serve as vital infrastructure to deliver expanded access to care in-person and online to meet the needs of Amazon’s employees and their families,” Scott Shreeve, MD, CEO and cofounder of Crossover Health, said in a statement. 

The end goal is to set up 20 of this type of employee-only health center around the country. 

WHY IT MATTERS 

All eyes have been on Amazon after it announced in 2018 a major collaboration with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase to build an independent, nonprofit healthcare company with the goal of increasing user satisfaction and reducing costs. However, there are still a lot of unknowns about what this joint venture, named Haven, will look like or mean for healthcare. 

In May, Havens’ CEO Dr. Atul Gawande announced he was stepping down from the role, without the company announcing much progress.

THE LARGER TREND 

Beside the deal with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase, Amazon has been working on its own employee health alternatives. In February, its tech-enabled Amazon Care program rolled out in Seattle. The service offers face-to-face and virtual-care options. It also includes a mobile-care clinic, where a nurse will go to a patient’s home or office. 

It isn’t the only tech giant to go this route. Apple quietly launched its own employee clinic network called AC Wellness in early 2018. 

While Amazon has been focused on employee health it has come under fire about the spread of the coronavirus in its warehouses. In June the company said that it had plans to build a diagnostic lab, in part to help test its warehouse employees.