Uber Adds Grocery Delivery Through Health Division
Uber is opening another route for grocery delivery. The company’s health care unit, Uber Health, is adding grocery and over-the-counter (OTC) product delivery to its platform as a way to provide more options and services to consumers and facilitate benefits from food as medicine programs.
The Uber Eats arm will facilitate grocery and OTC deliveries for Uber Health, which already provides prescription delivery and non-emergency medical transportation. Uber Health reported that demand for its mobile solutions has led to a 75% growth in gross bookings from the first quarter of 2022 to the first quarter of 2023.
By adding the delivery of essential items through the platform, Uber Health aims to help providers and payers, including Medicare and Medicaid, improve patients’ access to healthy foods and medicines for a more holistic approach to health and wellness. The company cited a study showing that the delivery of healthy meals could eliminate 1.6 million hospitalizations a year by improving preventative and chronic care. Uber highlighted another study that found that patients with access to healthy meals cost the health care system 16% less than patients who did not have such access.
“Value-based care is the future of health care, but it’s complex and labor-intensive to deliver and scale. Uber Health addresses this challenge head-on,” explained Caitlin Donovan, global head of Uber Health. “Our platform streamlines coordination across multiple benefits — non-emergency medical transportation, prescription delivery, and food and over-the-counter medication delivery, empowering payers and providers to support patients beyond the four walls of a medical office. And, because our platform is built on the largest mobility network in the world, we’re uniquely capable of meeting these needs and unlocking the potential of value-based care at scale.”
The program is being rolled out soon to payers and providers across the United States, who can use the Uber Health platform to send groceries and OTC items directly to their patients’ homes. Users can customize programs and orders based on their patients’ specific needs.
