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Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

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Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#81

Post by SuoDuanDao »

mfer wrote: post #45
smeyer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't they do a better job in lots of other countries? I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that a lot of the countries with socialized medicine such that their government is the one negotiating with drug manufacturers pay substantially less for drugs than customers in the US.

I've been reading some books on the medical industry and one of the things pointed out is that the price controls will often not provide enough profit to R&D new drugs. That the US ends up subsidizing a lot of R&D cost that everyone benefits from. If this is the case, I wonder what would happen to drug development if that goes away. Note, I'm not saying there's not too much profit from drugs. These statements don't h…

I've heard that argument, not sure how much I buy it. Seems the drugs that get developed tend towards niche applications, while common diseases that affect mostly uninsured people are addressed by places like the Gates foundation.

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#82

Post by Auracle »

mfer wrote: post #45
smeyer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't they do a better job in lots of other countries? I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that a lot of the countries with socialized medicine such that their government is the one negotiating with drug manufacturers pay substantially less for drugs than customers in the US.

I've been reading some books on the medical industry and one of the things pointed out is that the price controls will often not provide enough profit to R&D new drugs. That the US ends up subsidizing a lot of R&D cost that everyone benefits from. If this is the case, I wonder what would happen to drug development if that goes away. Note, I'm not saying there's not too much profit from drugs. These statements don't h…

That’s why we should tie our drug prices to the prices other countries pay. I believe Trump did that (or talked about doing it?) for Medicare, but it’s absolutely insane we haven’t done it across the board.

Republicans would be hesitant due to “regulations bad,” and Democrats don’t want to improve our current system because they’d rather throw it out. And of course both sides get donations from pharma.

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#83

Post by whoknew1122 »

jedimastert wrote: post #18
sytelus wrote: post #13

Just wondering why couldn’t Walgreens do this? During covid, Walgreens is still one store that you must visit physically to get your prescription. I always thought there was some crazy health care regularization that prevented medicine delivery.

Nope, just inelastic demand. They didn't need to to be competitive, and gig economy wouldn't work because...well, yikes.

Oh, don't you worry. The gig economy is coming for prescriptions, too. Uber Eats gave me a push notification about it the other day.

https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/uber-health-launches-pre...

Absolutely no way mixing the gig economy with PHI ends well.

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#84

Post by pkaye »

mfer wrote: post #59
SamuelAdams wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How will Amazon use the tracking information from drug purchases? Likely not at all. HIPAA comes into play here. Typically any information provided under a HIPAA context cannot be used for solicitation or marketing purposes. For non-USA amazon users, I'm sure other laws apply. Source: used to work at a big retailer and had to remind managers of this frequently when they wanted to "integrate data from all these syst…

Amazon has a history of taking patented designs, copying them, selling them for less with better visibility, and threatening patent holders. This is an element that speaks to the character of the organization. So, that makes me wonder... > Typically any information provided under a HIPAA context cannot be used for solicitation or marketing purposes. I wonder if they could put in their terms & conditions that you give…

> Amazon has a history of taking patented designs, copying them, selling them for less with better visibility, and threatening patent holders

Can you provide an example?

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#85

Post by whoknew1122 »

joncrane wrote: post #42
spir wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American resident, I couldn't be more excited for Amazon to disrupt the reprehensible anti-customer practices endemic to the US healthcare system. Recently, I had a runny nose and no fever and thought, "what the heck, let's get a COVID test", and found out they are $200+ here in Austin.

Your county isn't doing free COVID testing?!?! In my county in Maryland every day there are about 10 sites you can get free testing (though they are not all open all day, but at any given time between 7a-6p you can get tested at least one or two places). There are also private practices where you can pay extra to get the results back 1-2 days earlier.

I had a secondary exposure and my rapid test was $400. Thankfully I have really good insurance and didn't pay anything.

My alma mater has an endowment of multiple tens of billions of dollars and was forcing students to pay for COVID tests after having on-campus lectures.

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#87

Post by _alex_ »

llee37x wrote: post #2

Just a heads up, if you use this service PillPack and Amazon Employees have full access to your entire prescription history. Full name, social everything - it was common for employees to look up the info of celebrities / other employees for fun. Any prescription / healthcare info you give them will be sold back to SureScripts and used to sell you more garbage from Amazon ;) https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-mail-or…

Citation needed

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#88

Post by fweespeech »

BooneJS wrote: post #75

Given the issue with counterfeit material in their warehouses, I don’t even know what they could do to make me trust their control of the drug supply chain.

Yeah, I'd rather use a real pharmacy to mail my pills. They have online ordering at several.

Re: Amazon launches Amazon Pharmacy for prescription medicine delivery

#90

Post by mysticllama »

llee37x wrote: post #2

Just a heads up, if you use this service PillPack and Amazon Employees have full access to your entire prescription history. Full name, social everything - it was common for employees to look up the info of celebrities / other employees for fun. Any prescription / healthcare info you give them will be sold back to SureScripts and used to sell you more garbage from Amazon ;) https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-mail-or…

What is your source for the claim that Amazon - PillPack employees commonly accessed prescription info "for fun?"

I worked at PillPack for over 3 years, and while I haven't been there for a while this seems like a very bold claim that is wildly inconsistent with the sort of practices I saw followed in my time there.

I don't think using a throwaway to throw shade like this is the right way to handle such a serious matter, but whatever -- if you do legitimately want to address this issue let me know; I could point you to a contact at the company and/or outside of it that would take it seriously and investigate it, as this is very alarming and unacceptable (speaking also as a customer whose data is there).

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