The doctor of the future will see you in person or by web cam, communicate directly or via e-mail, schedule appointements online, and will only take cash.

This is the vision proposed in a recent article in Fast Company, “The Doctor of the Future.”

This article profiles a new medical portal Myca  and a new health service, Hello Health  that runs on it. Essentially, Hello Health is a web storefront and social networking site focused on health care. The thing that makes this so interesting from a cash-pay perspective is the business model. Hello Health takes only cash, you have to subscribe to the service for $35 per month and pay for visits and other services as needed. Hello Health does not bill or take insurance claims. The subscriber can elect to submit receipts to their insurance if that insurance allows out-of-plan physician visits.

The other end of this cash pay system is about knowing how much the subscriber should pay for other services, even services not offered by Hello Health. Hello Health will provide the subscriber with information on how much should be spent on a given service and recommend providers in the area.

This is evidence that the health care market is changing. Providers will be competing on a more level field where patients armed with information about the market will be making more informed decisions. These patients will be supported by medical groups and physicians that understand the needs of patients who are managing their own health care dollar. The doctor of the future will be online and ready to provide patients with recommendations for their health care and their spending for health care.

If you are in your 20s and shun health insurance either because your age makes you feel invulnerable or because you find health insurance outrageously expensive, you are not alone. The health industry calls you the “Young Invincible.”

In other words, you are “willingly uninsured”! The Young Invincible along, with many other self employed people in the US are willingly uninsured or underinsured. They can afford the premiums but would rather take the risk and save that money for something else.

As Young Invincible you also have not one, but two top honors:

First: you are the nation’s largest group of uninsured— there were 13.2 million uninsured nationally in 2007, or 29 percent of the population, according to the latest figures from the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit research group in New York.

Second: you are the insurer’s top choice as a target customer. You are least likely to use services the health insurer will have to pay for. Your health premium goes a long way in paying for health services utilized by the “high risk” population, the older and the not so healthy.

This is how the insurance system works. The healthy pay for the sick, in the hope that when they, the healthy, get sick the next set of healthy people will pay for them.

As a Young Invincible whether to get health insurance, and if you do decide to, what type of health insurance you should get depends on your risk tolerance, your health condition, and your employment status.

We at HealDeal believe that there should be alternatives available to people without health insurance or government coverage. If you passed the “Young Invincible” test, you fall in that category and you should also have the choices and power to demand better value from your health care spending $$$. That’s why we build this platform, to empower you the same way the insured folks are.

We would love to hear your opinion. After all, you are the generation that will be shaping the future of healthcare in this country. Send us an email at feedback@healdeal.com or post it right here.

The following article shares some good news for the uninsured. Some hospitals are offering the uninsured discounted rates. Historically, the uninsured have had to pay the highest rates as they lack the negotiating power of a large insurance company. (This is odd given the uninsured likely have less money than the insured, but that’s the health care market for you.) My guess is many providers have offered discounts for years for those that negotiate and clearly providers have had to write-off many services for those that simply cannot pay.

The article also notes not surprisingly that not all providers offer the same discounts and that one may have to ask for the discounted price to get it. Like other consumer markets, those that do their research can find a bigger deal for their health care. Unfortunately, price shopping in this industry is difficult and time consuming. It is challenging to call multiple providers to request prices and furthermore you do not always know if the same services are included at each provider.

HealDeal may be able to help. HealDeal offers pricing information from a growing list of providers and standardizes the services to help you shop for health care. Using HealDeal, you can go to one place to compare provider prices and locations, hours, languages spoken, etc. If you are paying out of your own pocket, do a little extra research on HealDeal to make sure you are not missing out on a discount.

Although it is not surprising that the number of uninsured is increasing during this deep recession, the low adoption of COBRA coverage as described in a recent article is startling. COBRA exists to help the unemployed maintain quality health insurance when they have lost their job. However, the cost of health insurance has increased so dramatically in the past 10 years that COBRA is not affordable to many that lose their job. The article states that only 9% of those eligible for COBRA are signing up compared to 18 – 26% in previous COBRA surveys. The fact of the matter is that unemployment benefits are insufficient to pay for housing, food, and health insurance so health insurance is dropped.

HealDeal can help those that do not have health insurance find affordable care. For the increasing number of people that do not have insurance and don’t qualify for Medicaid, it is critical that they spend their health care dollars wisely.

HealDeal consolidates pricing information from multiple providers and many medical services. This enables the uninsured to shop around and view prices before paying for the service. Check it out and/or pass it on to someone that could use the help in this difficult economic climate.