Vax

One Medical allegedly let VIPs skip the vaccine line (spoiler: the stock plunged)

Wednesday, March 3, 2021 by Snacks

Cold towel, hot water... One Medical is kind of like the Equinox of primary care ($200/year membership fee). The app-based concierge healthcare company went public last year, with the goal of "making people fall in love with their doctor's office." We know it loves Millennials, since it mentioned "delight" seven times in its IPO filing (more than "doctor"). Now it's dealing with some undelightful attention.

  • The bad: One Medical has allegedly been letting ineligible patients and wealthy VIP clients cut the Covid vaccine line, according to NPR.
  • The ugly: Congress is now investigating the allegations. One Medical stock has plunged 15% since the NPR report dropped mid-last week.

The response... One Medical pushed back, saying that it doesn't "broadly and knowingly disregard eligibility guidelines." It also says it fired staff members that had glossed over eligibility rules. That didn't spare it from backlash: Washington state and five Bay Area counties have stopped sending vaccines to One Medical. The SF Department of Public Health went a step further, asking it to return 1.6K doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

THE TAKEAWAY

Vax distribution already has an equality problem... If One Medical is exploiting the (federally funded) vax rollout for its own biz interests, it's making the inequality worse. The vaccine is still scarce, and 67% of people who have been vaccinated in the US so far have been white. On the bright side: Johnson & Johnson's game-changing one-shot vaccine has started rolling out, and President Biden just said the US will be able to vax all adults by the end of May. But if the One Medical allegations are true, that could limit (or end) its vax involvement. That could hurt its growing biz and its stock price.

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