Want to know where the delivery of health care is going? Drop by 215 West 125th St. in Harlem, or 87 Bowery in Chinatown, or 55 Church St. in New Haven. That’s where you can walk in and get checked out – fiscally and often physically.

EmblemHealth has opened Neighborhood Care at three locations in New York. And our client Access Health CT has opened two storefronts in Connecticut. All locations have taken health care retail. And we think it’s a sea change in the making.

Walk right in.

Need health insurance? Got questions about your prescriptions? Want a quick health assessment? How about a class on prevention – or even yoga? This is the place. At the Neighborhood Care locations, they’re all offered by EmblemHealth to all comers, whether members of an EmblemHealth plan or not – served up with refreshments and smiles. An insurance company is doing this? Yep, have a look.

Welcome to the new face of health coverage. For EmblemHealth, it’s about caring for the health and well-being of the entire community – with programs that really connect with consumers, promote trust, and otherwise achieve their goals as well as the insurer’s. That means common sense about wellness – not just the dollars and cents of premiums and claims.

You don’t have to be a genius.

Connecticut’s got one of the most successful health care exchanges in the country. Why? Give a lot of the credit to its community-based storefronts, known as Enrollment Centers, which we developed on behalf of Access Health CT. They’re fashioned after an Apple Store, where you can get the same kind of treatment. Forbes magazine calls them simple, informed, friendly, efficient and helpful. Got questions? They’ve got the answers.

C’mon, who would go to a retail store for health insurance? Well, many thousands of people, as it turns out. And many thousands more have gone to the Exchange’s 100+ Enrollment Fairs. Even better, they’ve been high-quality visitors. Across all locations and events, conversion to completed applications is about 45% higher than the average for all enrollment channels.

Health coverage: The future is retail.

The trend has only just begun. Just as defined-benefit pensions gave way to 401(k) plans, so will more and more employers be giving their people contributions to purchase their own health coverage. And those people will need a place to go for answers – a convenient place. Look for more of these storefronts coming soon to a neighborhood near you!

Our congratulations go out to our friend Dave Mahder, Vice President, Marketing and Communications at EmblemHealth, for his contribution to EmblemHealth Neighborhood Care. And our thanks go out to him for his contribution to this article.