Amazon's RxPass: what is it and how does it work?

Amazon is upping the ante in the United States and offering a new perk for Amazon Prime members: RxPass.

RxPass allows Prime members to access a variety of generic medications for a monthly flat fee of just $5, in addition to the $139 yearly fee for Prime membership.

Image: Amazon.com

Within the flat monthly fee, Prime members can order refills and schedule deliveries for their medication.  The fee will not increase even if users require multiple prescriptions each month.

Per CNCB, RxPass is a part of Amazon Pharmacy, and the service is available in all 42 American states and includes free delivery of medications.

Image: Amazon.com

Over 50 generic medications are offered by RxPass, medicines used to treat over 80 common medical conditions such as acid reflux, high cholesterol or high blood pressure.

This means those with RxPass will no longer depend on their health insurance to access needed drugs at a low cost.

In an interview with GeekWire, Vin Gupta, Amazon's chief medical officer, said, "We're excited about the potential impact that this will have for those people on multiple medications. That's who we think will benefit most from this service."

Image: screenshot, Yahoo Finance

Gupta also told GeekWire that roughly 150 million Americans "take at least one of the available medications available with RxPass."

Gupta also pointed out that thanks to this service, those who are uninsured or underinsured will now have access to inexpensive medications.

In an interview with CNBC, Vin Gupta said that Amazon's goal is to provide a "fundamentally different" pharmacy experience compared to how pharmacies have operated in recent decades.

"This is still day one for us where we're at our beginning stages here, but we recognize that change is needed," Gupta said in the interview. "That's what patients across the country are telling us, and that's what Amazon is responding to."

While there are other companies that offer discounts and medication pricing transparency, such as SingleCare, oneRx, PharmacyChecker, or Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs, Amazon says that its flat $5 fee for a wide range of drugs is unique.

Image: Amazon.com

Those who sign up for RxPass must get their prescription through Amazon Pharmacy's service or transfer an existing prescription to the service.

Unfortunately, at this time, Amazon has stated that those using Medicare or Medicaid are not eligible for Amazon RxPass. However, they can still use government insurance to fill prescriptions at Amazon Pharmacy.

This new service is Amazon's newest healthcare initiative after announcing the company's plans to acquire the primary care service One Medical in July for $3.9 billion and the introduction of Amazon Clinc, a message-based healthcare service, in November of 2022.

However, some say Amazon probably has ulterior motives for offering generic medications at such a low price.

According to CNN, the director of the Sloan Program in Health Administration at Cornell University, Sean Nicholson, said that he believes that Amazon likely hopes the program will "compel customers to switch to Amazon for higher-margin branded drugs, and get them to spend more on other products when they use the program."