The general public is well-acquainted with companies like Amazon, CVS, and Walmart, for their role as retail and e-commerce giants. However, as Dr. Robert Pearl of Stanford University and Stanford Graduate School of Business writes in recent KevinMD article, these three retailers have made large strides to find footholds in the healthcare industry through high-profile acquisitions. As he goes on to discuss, Dr. Pearl expects that Amazon, CVS, and Walmart will incorporate capitation models into their respective care delivery systems over the traditional fee-for-service model, thereby creating aligned incentives and value realization for patients, providers, and healthcare systems alike. Capitation can be understood as a retainer renumeration model—one that reimburses physicians and providers through maintaining patient health regardless of tests ran, procedures performed, and the number of visits or touchpoints between patients and their care providers.

Dr. Pearl believes this capitation model will be upheld through Medicare Advantage, a privatized alternative to Medicare. Using this model, he suggests that Amazon, CVS, and Walmart may subsequently begin to form endogenous in-network systems that minimize inefficiencies that drive up healthcare spending to maximize profits. While wariness of larger corporations like these is certainly warranted, the good news is that capitation is observed to translate benefits to patients, leading to increased patient satisfaction and better health outcomes. As the future of US healthcare becomes increasingly crowded with private, industry-agnostic conglomerates seeking to impact medicine, patients may benefit from more options, increased autonomy, and reduced complexity and fragmentation despite the continued domestic trend away from a national, single-payer healthcare system.