Aug 6 (Reuters) – Amazon’s pharmacy unit said on Thursday it would offer weight-loss drugs to eligible Medicare beneficiaries \u200cfor $50 a month through a new federal program created \u200cto expand access to the highly sought-after treatments. <\/p>\n
The company said it would automate \u200beligibility checks, prior authorization and billing, while offering home delivery and in-store pickup, to help patients access the drugs faster and reduce the administrative burden. <\/p>\n
\u2022 The U.S. government’s Medicare bridge program, launched \u200clast month, allows eligible \u2060beneficiaries to obtain drugs including Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy in injection or pill form, as well as \u2060Eli Lilly’s four-dose Zepbound KwikPen injection and the Foundayo pill, through the end of 2027. The program does not cover single-dose \u200bZepbound vials \u200bor pens. <\/p>\n
\u2022 Amazon Pharmacy said \u200bit would initiate the enrolment \u200cprocess on a customer’s behalf once the patient adds insurance and Medicare details to their account and a clinician submits an electronic prescription. <\/p>\n
\u2022 Many of the claims submitted have already resulted in completed orders, it said. <\/p>\n
\u2022 Amazon Pharmacy launched electronic kiosks \u200cin its One Medical primary care \u200blocations last year to improve access \u200band cut shipping costs. <\/p>\n
\u2022 \u200bOne Medical, a national primary care provider Amazon \u200cacquired in 2023, allows patients to \u200baccess primary and \u200burgent care for an annual subscription fee of $199. <\/p>\n
\u2022 Same-day delivery is available in more than 3,100 U.S. cities and \u200btowns and is \u200cexpected to expand to nearly 4,500 locations by the \u200bend of 2026, Amazon said. <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Sahil Pandey in \u200bBengaluru; Editing by Jonathan Ananda) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aug 6 (Reuters) – Amazon’s pharmacy unit said on Thursday it would offer weight-loss drugs to eligible Medicare…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[136689,971,242682,49,48,195639,84,2098,377,5246],"class_list":["post-849323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-administrative-burden","tag-amazon","tag-amazon-pharmacy","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-federal-program","tag-health","tag-medicare","tag-medication","tag-novo-nordisk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}