Retail Healthcare: The New Reality
Posted by Gary Paquin on Fri, Feb 12, 2010 @ 09:03 AM
Congress continues to duke it out in a healthcare slugfest that will clearly have no winners. The only gold to be delivered from the alchemists in Washington is fool's gold. The numbers simply don't add up. Healthcare is finally facing the perfect storm of a rapid new influx of people entering into a government guaranteed program (Medicare), spiraling healthcare costs, and fewer people to pay for these costs over the next 30 years. Healthcare professionals and the government do agree on one thing - it is not going to be business as usual in the next 5-10 years. Something has to give. And that something is probably the fundamental model of healthcare in the United States.
Gone are the days when Americans could live their lives with little consideration given to lifestyle choices and how those choices may ultimately impact the longevity and quality of their lives. Excessive alcohol, use of tobacco products, poor diet, and a lack of exercise are the main culprits behind an increasingly unhealthy population. As the old saying goes, ‘genetics loads the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger'.
Recent trends indicate a definitive move to healthier lifestyles and, consequently, choices by Americans. The number of people seeking healthcare information online has more than doubled in the last two years, making healthcare the new number one topic on the Internet. These online consumers are more likely to buy products from healthcare ecommerce stores, generating an entirely new income source for traditional healthcare providers.
As consumers make lifestyle choices that positively impact their health, they are also buying products and services in an ever-escalating fashion. Traditional healthcare providers are a logical source to offer these healthcare products to consumers. Healthy lifestyle choices have created a new economic reality. Retail healthcare expenditures will continue to escalate at a far greater pace than traditional reimbursed healthcare dollars, partially out of choice and partially out of necessity. Traditional healthcare providers will need to adapt to this new economic reality or go the way of the middle ages' alchemists; a lifetime of work and fool's gold in the bank.