News Amazon will spend $3.9 billion on doctor-staffed clinics will make the business of buying primary care physician practices much more expensive for retail rivals, Forbes reports.
Amazon’s proposed acquisition of One Medical comes during a period of unprecedented competition for primary care doctor practices with Walgreens opening hundreds of physician-staffed clinics with partner VillageMD while Walmart launches its doctor-staffed clinics under the Walmart Health brand in several new markets. Meanwhile, CVS Health, which has long staffed its more than 1,100 in-store clinics with nurse practitioners is also rolling out more primary care models that include physicians.
“Coinciding with physician workforce shortages, volatility, and workplace disaffection is the growing presence of non-traditional players such as retail outlets, insurance companies and private investor groups that now actively recruit physicians and/or acquire their practices,” the doctor staffing companies AMN Healthcare and Merritt Hawkins said in their recently released review of physician recruiting incentives.
Physician compensation is already on the rise as patients return to see their doctors in-person after the Covid-19 pandemic and government shutdowns caused practices and clinics to close in 2020 and primary care salaries tumbled briefly. Read more.
