# Why Amazon has been quietly acquiring pharmacy licenses...



## Amsoil Uber Connect (Jan 14, 2015)

https://www.prisonplanet.com/amazon...mpany-free-from-profit-making-incentives.html

Transparent healthcare ? This can't be good.


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## jester121 (Sep 6, 2016)

Any employee who's familiar with how jacked up the Flex program is should be highly skeptical of this. They'll probably use the same clueless support people, broken apps, etc.


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## Bygosh (Oct 9, 2016)

Healthcare can not get any worse in this country. Amazon has lowered the costs of many things, I'm excited for them to take on healthcare where everything is bloated beyond belief.


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## dkcs (Aug 27, 2014)

Having worked in a pharmacy for many years it would not surprise me one bit to see Amazon start a mail order/Prime Now pharmacy delivery option. It will be just one of the pieces of the puzzle to lowering overall healthcare costs in their own healthcare organization.

Fox example, one of the biggest costs for a pharmacy is labor due to the high salaries a pharmacist makes, $150k per year to have someone follow a computer telling them which pills to put into a bottle.


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## oicu812 (Aug 29, 2016)

dkcs said:


> Fox example, one of the biggest costs for a pharmacy is labor due to the high salaries a pharmacist makes, $150k per year to have someone follow a computer telling them which pills to put into a bottle.


Why does Costco need Pharmacists? It's because they need the license that a Pharmacist has so they can sell their drugs to the Costco members. No Pharmacist, no prescription drugs. BTW, pharm techs put pills into a bottle. They make way less. They do the bulk of the filling of prescriptions.

Acquiring licenses to dispense is different from having a Pharmacist on staff.


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## dkcs (Aug 27, 2014)

Costco needs pharmacists because they have retail locations. Mail order pharmacies or a centralized pharmacy making deliveries by courier only need a limited number of pharmacists to do quality control and to sign off on a script. You have multiple cheap techs do the fills and a limited number of pharmacists for the quality assurance.

The pharmacy associations have for years worked in getting laws enacted to protect pharmacist jobs by ensuring laws limiting the number of tech to pharmacists that are allowed in a RETAIL setting. Having a centralized, non-retail location allows a health care provider to get around these laws.

Amazon could simply run a non-retail pharmacy to skirt the requirements and slash labor costs. For example, you can get your rx delivered the same day via PN or mailed to your home (provided it is not a controlled drug) for no co-pay or if you need to go to an actual pharmacy you get hit with a $50 co-pay. There are plenty of ways Amazon can cut the costs of healthcare, particularly with prescriptions. For chain pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS the pharmacy is the profit center in the operation that props up the rest of the store. Eliminate the part of the equation that isn't a money maker (non-pharmacy sales) and pass the savings onto the consumer in the form of cheaper drug prices.


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## rozz (Sep 7, 2016)

They could use pharmacies to prop up Prime Now. Prime Now is akin to a hyperefficient grocery store. It makes sense to inject (haha) a drug business in there and use existing infrastructure to reduce costs and obtain profit.


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## dkcs (Aug 27, 2014)

The article linked in the original post says the wholesale licenses they are purchasing are using existing Flex distribution centers as the license addresses so this is the most probable outcome.

One day Amazon will be able to deliver an adult toy and a bottle of V*agra in one hour!

V*agra is a banned word?


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## rozz (Sep 7, 2016)

dkcs said:


> The article linked in the original post says the wholesale licenses they are purchasing are using existing Flex distribution centers as the license addresses so this is the most probable outcome.
> 
> One day Amazon will be able to deliver an adult toy and a bottle of V*agra in one hour!
> 
> V*agra is a banned word?


Wait until a Flex driver gets deactivated for not delivering a life-saving medication on time *gasps*.


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## kmatt (Apr 25, 2016)

rozz said:


> Wait until a Flex driver gets deactivated for not delivering a life-saving medication on time *gasps*.


Or a driver gets upset about being blocked from Amazon for no reason and ODs with customers meds


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