Can Amazon One Medical Write You a Doctor's Note?

Adam Z. Kawalek, MD

May 24, 2026 · 4 min read

If you're an Amazon employee who's used One Medical for healthcare, you've probably wondered the same thing as a lot of your coworkers: can One Medical write me the doctor's note I need to submit to Amazon DLS? You're not alone in asking. We see this question come into our practice from Amazon employees in Texas, Arizona, California, North Carolina, and Ohio every week. The honest answer — and we'll explain why — is almost always no. Here's what's going on, and what to do instead.

What Amazon One Medical actually is

One Medical is a primary care service that Amazon acquired in February 2023 for about $3.9 billion. It's available to many Amazon employees as a covered or subsidized healthcare benefit. The clinical model is straightforward: scheduled visits with a primary care physician, in-person at a clinic or via the One Medical app, focused on routine and preventive medical care. It's a legitimate primary care service with real, licensed physicians.

But here's the part that trips a lot of Amazon employees up: primary care and attendance documentation are not the same product.

Why One Medical typically declines to write attendance notes

When an Amazon employee submits a request to Amazon's Disability and Leave Services (DLS), the documentation required is specific. The E103 (Health Care Provider Form) asks the treating physician to certify that the employee was incapacitated and unable to work during specific dates, and to categorize the medical reason. The E117 (Authorization to Disclose Information) lets DLS contact the provider with follow-up questions.

There are a few reasons One Medical physicians often won't complete these forms:

Clinical scope mismatch. Most One Medical visits — especially virtual ones — are scheduled for primary care concerns: managing chronic conditions, refills, preventive screenings, minor acute complaints. They aren't structured as work-disability evaluations. A 15-minute primary care visit for a sore throat doesn't generate the clinical record needed to attest a worker was incapacitated for a specific shift window. The physician hasn't done a work-disability assessment, so they decline to fill out forms that ask them to certify one.

Professional documentation standards. Many primary care physicians don't write attendance or short-term disability notes as a matter of practice. They view it as a separate clinical product from what they were trained and credentialed to do. This isn't a One Medical–specific policy — it's common across primary care.

The structural conflict of interest. This is the part that often goes unsaid. One Medical is now wholly owned by Amazon. When an Amazon employee submits documentation to Amazon DLS that was written by a doctor working for an Amazon-owned medical practice, both the physician and the patient have the same ultimate corporate parent. From a clinical-ethics standpoint, that's a structural conflict — the physician is in the position of being asked to certify a work restriction against a department of the same corporate entity that signs their paycheck. Many physicians, when they identify this dynamic, will decline to complete the forms to preserve the independence of their clinical judgment. That's the responsible call.

What Amazon One Medical IS useful for

To be fair to One Medical, the service has real value for Amazon employees:

• Primary care for chronic conditions (diabetes, hypertension, mental health)
• Same-day or next-day appointments for acute concerns
• Refills and medication management
• Specialist referrals
• Preventive care and screenings

If you have an ongoing relationship with a One Medical primary care physician and your medical case involves more than a one-off absence — say, you have a serious health condition under FMLA — they may be able to provide ongoing documentation as part of your continuing care. That's different from "I had a stomach bug Tuesday, please write me a note for DLS."

What about Amazon's other healthcare benefits?

A few related Amazon health benefits employees often ask about:

Amazon Care was Amazon's internal telehealth service for employees. It was shut down in November 2022. If anyone tells you to "just use Amazon Care for a note," that service no longer exists.

Amazon Pharmacy is the prescription medication service. It dispenses medication. It does not write doctor's notes for attendance purposes.

Doctor on Demand is included as a telehealth benefit in some Amazon health plans (varying by tier and state). It's intended for acute clinical visits, not absence documentation. The same primary-care-vs.-attendance-documentation distinction applies.

Health Savings Accounts and Flexible Spending Accounts — these will reimburse you for a qualifying medical visit, including a telehealth visit. So a doctor's note from an independent telehealth service may be eligible for HSA/FSA reimbursement, depending on your plan.

What you actually need for an Amazon DLS submission

If Amazon DLS asked you to provide the E103 and E117 forms, you need:

• A physician licensed in the state where you work
• A clinical record sufficient to attest that you were unable to work for the specific dates of absence
• The completed E103 form, with Section A2 filled out for the absence category
• The completed E117 authorization
• Submitted to DLS through the AtoZ portal, by fax to 1-855-579-1799, or by email to amazondls@amazon.com

A single, board-certified physician's signature on these forms is the standard. The physician should not be employed by Amazon, by an Amazon-owned subsidiary, or by a third party with a structural conflict.

My honest take as a physician

I've been signing physician documentation for fifteen years across emergency departments, walk-in clinics, and now an independent telehealth practice. The reality is that the rules around attendance documentation are not arbitrary. Employers — including Amazon — want a real physician, with a real state license and a real NPI number, who reviewed your case and made an independent clinical judgment. That's what makes the documentation legitimate.

Amazon One Medical doesn't decline to write your DLS forms because they're being difficult. They decline because they're being responsible. The same conflict-of-interest principles that protect you in any clinical encounter — that your doctor's clinical judgment is independent of any external financial pressure — are the principles that lead One Medical to step back from writing these forms.

The good news is that an independent telehealth physician can complete the E103 and E117 the same day, often within the hour. The clinical assessment is the same standard one you'd get in a One Medical office: medical history, symptoms, clinical judgment, signed documentation. The difference is the independence.

Adam Z. Kawalek, MD

Board-Certified Physician · Founder, SickSlip · Cedars-Sinai · Johns Hopkins

Dr. Kawalek is a hospitalist physician with 15+ years of clinical experience. He founded SickSlip to give patients fast, affordable access to legitimate medical documentation without unnecessary clinical barriers.