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John R. Fischer, Senior Reporter | January 06, 2021
Haven will cease operations at the end of February
Haven, the enterprise managing healthcare for hundreds of thousands of U.S. employees at Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase & Co., is calling it quits.
The company announced on its website that it will close shop at the end of February.
“In the past three years, Haven explored a wide range of healthcare solutions, as well as piloted new ways to make primary care easier to access, insurance benefits simpler to understand and easier to use, and prescription drugs more affordable. Moving forward, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. will leverage these insights and continue to collaborate informally to design programs tailored to address the specific needs of their own employee populations,” it said in the announcement.
Haven
debuted in 2018 as a joint venture by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan Chase & Co. for lowering healthcare costs and improving outcomes for employees. The three created the firm due to the challenges they faced in providing healthcare to their own employees.
“The ballooning costs of healthcare act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy,” said the three at the time, who
named the firm Haven in 2019.
The opening of the firm caused drops in shares for healthcare companies out of fear that the combined resources of all three of its parent companies would push costs down,
according to CNBC. The news this week, in contrast, sent stocks up for the likes of UnitedHealth Group, Humana and CVS Health, which each saw increases of 2%.
One issue plaguing the Boston-based firm was that each of its three founders pursued their own projects separately with their own employees, despite the firm coming up with ideas for the three to execute together, reported CNBC. The company also saw the departure of its CEO, Dr. Atul Gawande, in May, creating the need to fill the vacancy he left.
Amazon recently showed signs of pursuing other endeavors in the healthcare field, with the
launch in November of Amazon Pharmacy, its online pharmacy for Prime Members, reported CNET.
All 57 of the Haven's workers are expected to be placed at Amazon, Berkshire Health or JP Morgan Chase, as each company pursues its own solo projects.
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