Today in healthcare, Walmart teams up with healthcare records platform Epic. Plus, Amazon’s Halo line expansion means upheaval is ahead in connected fitness, and almost two-thirds of patients pay out-of-pocket healthcare costs.
Amazon Halo Expansion Could Upend Connected Fitness Space
Amazon unofficially set its sights on Peloton this week with the expansion of its Halo platform, aiming to take on the connected fitness giant with an expansion of its Halo platform with the Halo View, which has a screen, Halo Nutrition, a platform to help build healthy eating habits, and Halo Fitness, a new service with hundreds of studio-quality workout classes.
Amazon launched Halo last year as a wristband device that tracks various health performance indicators.
64% of Patients Pay Out-of-Pocket Costs for Healthcare Visits
PYMNTS’ report The Payment Cure: How Improving Billing Experiences Impacts Patient Loyalty, done in collaboration with CareCredit, found that 64 percent of more than 3,500 consumers surveyed said they had to pay out-of-pocket healthcare costs.
About half of those patients don’t know that they have access to flexible payment options and one-third of consumers don’t seek the medical care they need because of financial constraints. More than 20 percent of respondents were concerned about the costs of those treatments and 11 percent said their plans wouldn’t cover the costs.
AMZN vs WMT Weekly: New Devices and Healthcare Collaborations Deepen Consumer Connections
Walmart this week joined forces with health records platform Epic, which is used by more than 2,000 hospitals and 45,000 clinics across the U.S., to create a portal through which Walmart Health members and healthcare professionals can access patients’ medical records and history.
The Walmart-Epic portal is set to debut at four new Walmart Health Centers in Florida early next year before expanding across the country. Walmart has in-store health clinics in Arkansas, Georgia and Illinois.
We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with innovators and disruptors.
Learn More