There are two major trends gaining traction in health care, one negative and one positive. Let’s start with the negative. There are an increasing number of people with access to care. Before the recession started there were 40 – 50 million people in the United States without insurance. The recession has lead to another than 4 million people losing their health insurance. According to the Center for American Progress, 14,000 people lose health coverage every day. Unless there is major health care reform, this trend will continue even after the economy recovers as the cost of health care continues to outpace inflation.

Fortunately, there is a positive, market-drive trend. Healthcare is slowing but surely becoming more retail which is giving more people access to care. Retail clinics have raised a substantial amount of health care venture money in the last several years and they are growing in popularity. Quick Health has opened several retail clinics inside pharmacies around the San Francisco Bay area. I’ve visited most of them and found them to be busy and serving an unmet need. Many of them offer service in Spanish and English to patients that do not have insurance. Minute Clinic and RediClinic are other popular retail clinics in other parts of the country.

People like retail clinics because they make health care more transparent and are customer focused. They can see the prices before they receive treatment and they can receive treatment with or without health insurance. In addition, retail clinics are convenient. You can just show up to a pharmacy that has a retail clinic and signup to see a doctor or nurse practitioner. There usually isn’t a long wait and even if there is a line you can shop for other things while you are waiting.

Like retail clinics, HealDeal is making health care more retail oriented. By visiting HealDeal, patients or consumers can see the cost for treatment without any commitment to purchase. Furthermore, the customer does not need insurance to access this service. People or consumers want value in healthcare like they find in any other industry (particularly those without insurance) and retail oriented approaches are starting to give consumer the tools they need to make value assessments.