Amazon’s One Medical pushed a misleading account of call center errors

Amazon acknowledged in earlier statements to The Post that those two cases should have been escalated immediately. The company also said it could not find records for six of the cases and that an additional review found the remainder did not violate its standards.

But the talking points later distributed to One Medical workers instructed them to offer an incomplete account to patients who asked questions about the incidents, according to screenshots of messages on the workplace messaging platform Slack seen by The Post.

Workers were asked to say that an internal safety team had reviewed the incidents and concluded that “in all instances, our patients received the care they needed.” The talking points did not acknowledge the errors or that One Medical had been unable to find records for six calls that had been flagged for failure to escalate to clinical staff.

“Thank you for reaching out,” workers were instructed to say. “The recent article that you are referencing mischaracterizes the dedication we have to our patients, and we are sorry for any concern that it has caused.”

In response to questions about why One Medical circulated the talking points, company spokesperson Dawn Brun acknowledged the two cases that were mishandled. “While the patients ended up receiving the care they needed (during in-person visits with their providers), the initial call could have been managed more effectively,” she wrote in an email statement.

Brun also said One Medical is still unable to locate records for six of the incidents. One of them involved a patient reporting “stomach pain and blood in stool”; another referenced a patient experiencing “sudden rib pain.”

“We take patients’ feedback seriously, and the story mischaracterizes the dedication we have to our patients and care teams,” Brun added. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.

After reports earlier this year that One Medical laid off in-office staff and transitioned senior patients to a centralized call center, the company said the move was intended to improve patient care and reduce phone wait times. The internal talking points claim that One Medical has seen a decrease in phone wait times and an increase in timely access to appointments.

But current and former One Medical employees and patients said minimal qualifications and limited training for call center staff, some of whom are contractors hired by a staffing agency, led to frustrating and potentially dangerous mishandling of some patient calls, The Post previously reported.

One Medical’s distribution of talking points on call center errors was not the first time the company had directed staff to answer certain questions from patients selectively.

Training documents previously reported on by The Post warn staffers that, for some patients, calling One Medical and reaching a call center, not a doctor’s office, might “conjure concerns about delays in patient care or diligence.” The documents, which The Post obtained, tell call center staff they do “not need to draw attention” to whether a patient’s inquiry is being handled by a doctor’s office, a call center or via telehealth.

Instead, the documents say, “if a concern is expressed, our goal is to reassure the patient that we are a trained and skilled One Medical Support Specialist and Part of their Care team.”