Rush expands reach with Amazon One Medical partnership

Rush University System for Health and Amazon One Medical announced this morning they’ve inked a collaboration deal to deliver primary and specialty care in the Chicago area together.

Partnering with Amazon’s member-based primary care operation is part of the Chicago academic health system’s effort to extend its reach by expanding into other health care providers’ facilities and building outpatient facilities of its own.

The collaboration comes less than a month after Rush announced another such partnership in which it is incorporating care into CVS Minute Clinic locations.

Rush wants to position itself throughout the Chicago area and northwest Indiana as highly accessible to patients who historically come from all over for specialty care at the system’s flagship hospital on the West Side, said Kate Jones, senior vice president and chief strategy officer at Rush.

“We want to meet them where they are,” she said, “and reach them at that first entry point into health care,” not just as a specialty care provider somewhere down the line.

“We can meet these patients where they access their Amazon One Medical care through Amazon membership or through employer-based contracting with Amazon One,” Jones said, “and when there is a specialty care handoff, we will be that specialty care provider.”

The health system said Amazon One Medical patients can transition easily to Rush for specialty care as needed. Patients can get in-person appointments with Rush specialists, plus Rush offers virtual same- or next-day appointments through Rush Connect Virtual Specialty Care.

Conditions treated by Rush Connect Virtual Specialty Care include ear, nose and throat disorders; heart care; skin and hair issues; urinary and sexual health; back and neck pain; women’s and menstrual health; weight loss; sports cardiology; cancer second opinions; and liver and kidney transplant.

Jones said practitioners who access the virtual care are part of Rush Health, which was important to ensuring the quality metrics of the academic medical center were met.

Amazon One Medical, a relative newcomer from the e-commerce giant providing nationwide patient care, says it has designed the patient care experience with thoughtfully designed offices, convenient appointments and ample time between patients and their provider. While not required for scheduled in-person or remote appointments, the statement said, One Medical memberships can be added as a Prime benefit for Amazon Prime members for $9/month or $99/year and cover 24/7 on-demand virtual care services.

Amazon One Medical also works with more than 10,000 employers throughout the U.S. who sponsor membership fees as a benefit for their employees and their dependents.

Dr. Helen Xenos, medical director of Amazon One Medical’s Chicago district, said the partnership with Rush “advances One Medical’s mission of transforming health care to improve the patient care experience in the Chicago area.”

Amazon One is generally only primary care, which means they need a specialty care provider connection, Jones said. And, as time goes on, Rush may have the opportunity to widen its reach throughout the nation as a leading academic medical center tied into Amazon One Medical, she said.

It’s not the only expansion of primary and specialty care options that Rush has signed onto.

In December, Rush Health said it was contracting to provide care in 39 Minute Clinics located inside CVS Pharmacy stores, with visits for advanced practice providers.

The moves to expand access to new locations comes at a time when patient demand is rising and the long-term supply of primary care physicians and students is stretched thin, Dr. Garth Walker, Rush Health’s chief medical officer, told Crain’s last month.

Rush had previously entered a Medicare partnership with CVS.

The Rush system also has been adding to its reach by opening outpatient centers throughout the Chicago area.

In 2025, Rush opened a three-story outpatient facility in Chicago’s Galewood neighborhood at Harlem and North, just north of Oak Park. A few miles north of Rush Oak Park Hospital, the Galewood site offers primary, specialty and urgent care, as well as operates a pharmacy.

In recent years, it has opened an outpatient center in Munster, Indiana, in partnership with Franciscan Alliance; a cancer center in Lisle, the Joan & Paul Rubschlager Building, which includes the Rush MD Anderson Cancer Center; and Rush Specialty Hospital, the rehabilitation facility run in partnership with Select Medical Corp.

“There won’t be a time in the future when we won’t need some form of brick and mortar locations,” Jones said. “We’ll keep building clinics, but continue to augment them with virtual care options, (more advanced) asynchronous messaging with providers, and remote patient monitoring to keep reaching patients where, and how, they want to be reached.”