Amazon puts pressure deeper into healthcare with new fixed prices for the treatment of certain conditions, including erectile dysfunction and hair loss. Under the new program, Prime members can know in advance the cost of a telehealth visit and the desired treatment, so they can decide whether they want to pursue it before scheduling a telehealth appointment . CNBC earlier reported on the news.

The initial video consultation costs $49, or $29 for messaging where permitted. In terms of drug prices, anti-aging drugs will cost $10 per month, while erectile dysfunction will cost $19 per month. Other treatments with an upfront price include those for motion sickness at $2 per use, hair loss at $16 per month, and eyelash growth, which will cost you $43 per month. There are treatments available for more than 30 common conditions, but only these five conditions have upfront pricing at this time. The price will appear at checkout when users are logged into Amazon with a Prime membership.

Amazon acquired primary care provider One Medical for $3.9 billion in 2022 and fills prescriptions through Amazon Pharmacy. The drugs are packaged in standard Amazon packaging, so no one will know you are ordering boner pills.

Healthcare is a big area of ​​focus for Amazon. This is understandable, because here in the United States health care is of course not free but rather free. a multi-billion dollar company.

In 2022, the company paid nearly $4 billion to acquire primary care provider One Medical and paid $750 million in 2019 for PillPack, a company that pre-sorts and delivers medications to people who manage multiple medications at the same time. In addition to a potentially lucrative new revenue stream, upfront pricing for Prime members could help drive subscriber loyalty if members become accustomed to using Amazon for their medications. People don’t want to change where they get their medications very often.

Amazon’s competitors in the telehealth space understandably didn’t weather the news well. Hims & Hers, which offers similar prescription medications over the Internet, rose more than 20% today following Amazon’s announcement.

Other retailers have also entered the health care sector. CVS, Safeway and Walgreens all have pharmaceutical businesses: CVS generates almost 70% of its revenues, or almost 200 billion dollarscome from the prescription of medications.

Safeway and Walgreens invested hundreds of millions in Theranos, the blood testing startup that turned out to be a fraud. They dreamed of potentially making billions of dollars by providing finger-prick blood tests that could run hundreds of tests, but they were ultimately forced to pay their customers tens of millions in damages after discovering that the tests they received were faulty.

Of course, it’s unfortunate that Americans have to pay so much for their health care. But look on the bright side, at least Prime only costs $14.99 per month. Besides the cost of the consultation and medication, there are no other fees for obtaining prescriptions from Amazon.