November 22, 2011
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Too often we overlook the power of small business to solve the world's most wicked problems. We're starting realize that the solution to our unemployment challenge lies not with the Fortune 500, but with small businesses and startups.
In honor of Small Business Saturday, I'd like to showcase WellnessMart MD. This small retailer in my local Southern California community has successfully addressed some vexing areas of the national health care tangle.
I hadn't heard of WellnessMart until a friend told me I could get a body composition test for $10 there, instead of paying $150 at my doctor's office. I could just walk in without an appointment, rather than waiting three weeks to see a doctor, and be done in less than five minutes.
WellnessMart is a refreshing concept: It’s a retail doctor's office.
My friend didn't exaggerate. I spent an hour there, but it was my choice, and it was fascinating. I was talking to the founder, Dr. Richard McCauley. A graduate of USC Medical School, McCauley was an emergency room physician for several years before developing a new idea for health care.
WellnessMart looks nothing like a typical medical office. It has an attractive retail storefront, ample parking and no waiting room. That's because there's no waiting. In fact, walking into a WellnessMart store feels like entering a hybrid of an Apple store and a Kinko's outlet. Picture white and lime-green walls, modern furnishings, an open floor plan, glossy floors, big-screen televisions and walls covered with prominent menu boards listing services and cash pricing.
"I totally copied the Apple store concept," McCauley tells me. And it turns out that he's related to Kinko's founder, business visionary Paul Orfalea—they're cousins.
But what I found really intriguing was his business strategy: Where in the market he had chosen to play, and how he planned to win.
"There are two kinds of people," states McCauley. "Healthy and sick. Why do sick people and healthy people go to the same place? Every other medical site treats both. We don't. We only serve healthy people. Health care isn't just for unhealthy times. From travel shots to tuberculosis testing to your kids' sports-team physical, there are many things you need from time to time. We make it easy."
WellnessMart is a different and smarter way of doing some health-related things. At WellnessMart, people can get travel vaccines, cholesterol checks or weight and nutrition consultations. McCauley can administer STD tests or cancer screens. You can buy physician-approved vitamins and it offers CPR classes.
The entire approach is one of simplicity and subtraction: no waiting, no appointments, no coughs and sniffles. “If you're wheezing, sneezing and coughing, you came to the wrong place," says McCauley.
But WellnessMart can still help you if you're sick. McCauley and his partner Chris Spieth have compiled a directory for where to get the best price on health care services that WellnessMart doesn't provide. You can look up where to go for doctor visits, X-rays, lab tests, dental work and prescription drugs. They have binders containing all the information spread out on a designated table, accessible to everyone.
McCauley said he got his idea while working as an ER doctor.
"I got really frustrated working on the front lines," he tells me. "I was beginning to feel like I could never fix anything. As a physician, part of my job is to be a patient advocate within a very complex system that frustrates everybody involved. I wanted to go directly to the public—with a retail store.
"The idea was to create a medical marketplace with a certain level of transparency so people can see what things cost," he says. "I thought, wouldn't it be great if health care was more like car care at your favorite local mechanic?"
He started in the hallway of a large health club, testing his concept with his potential consumer base. "Where do you find a well-contained concentration of healthy people? In a gym, working out," he says.
His concept proved popular. In 2008, McCauley launched WellnessMart MD in a small strip mall in Thousand Oaks, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. He now has two stores in northern California's Sacramento area, and another in West Los Angeles, for a total of four.
But McCauley's solution doesn't stop at health maintenance. He's tackling the toughest and most opaque part of health care: insurance. WellnessMart is a cash business and doesn't take insurance, but it sells policies and educates people on insurance.
"Health insurance should really be more like car insurance," he says. "You buy car insurance for accidents, not for oil changes, tune-ups and tires. You don't go to Jiffy-Lube and hand them your insurance card, but that's how health care operates. If car insurance companies tried to sell policies the way health care insurance companies do, and if they were five times more expensive but partially paid for this routine maintenance, nobody would buy them."
McCauley wants people to look at health insurance the way they do auto and home insurance—as something to purchase for the big disasters.
"People should be buying health insurance strictly for the unexpected stuff," he says. "There is so much savings there. A deductible in your car insurance is straightforward—if something happens, you pay the deductible and the insurance company handles the rest. Not so in health insurance. In all but a few cases, you keep paying. It's a different concept, but the same word. And it's not right."
He educated me about my own health insurance, and on the value of a health care savings account. He showed me how to save thousands of dollars by simply shifting my expectations of what insurance is and what it isn't. With this philosophy, the money I can save in premiums pays for the services you actually use, tax-free through a health savings account.
McCauley is a licensed insurance broker, but he only recommends and sells a few catastrophic policies. He showed me a number different plans, ran different scenarios on them, and easily illustrated how maybe only two or three were worthwhile because they operated more like auto insurance.
WellnessMart represents a profound improvement for consumers: a place they can walk in and get honest answers.
"Let's live in the real world where people have limited resources. Not everybody can afford everything," McCauley tells me. "If people can get the same quality care for less money, let's start there, and give people the opportunity to experience health care in a positive way. Then, let's allow them to ask questions, to learn. Traditional medical offices are not set up to teach. They're set up to diagnose and treat."
That's another cue McCauley took from an Apple store, the notion of a "genius bar." Each WellnessMart store has an educational area, equipped with large screens and ample seating. Training classes regularly teach CPR, first aid and child safety.
I loved the concept and the experience. I asked McCauley if he plans to expand nationally, or perhaps franchise.
"We are staying small and lean right now," he says. But he's well-positioned to take advantage of what appears to be a growing opportunity. The National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas expects the number of walk-in clinics to almost triple in the next four years in response to patient demand.
"You know that 2,500-page health care reform act working its way through Congress?" McCauley asks. "All you need is one sentence: 'Healthcare service providers must openly post the price of every service on a menu.' Problem solved, game over. We have to break with convention, and that's how to do it. That's how we did it."
As I walked away, I couldn't help but think that I had just realized my first victory over health care issues. For $10, I got a body composition profile, an education in how to simplify the most complex of situations and advice on how to save tens of thousands of dollars.
On this Small Business Saturday, I say "thank you" to Dr. Richard McCauley and his WellnessMart MD business.
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Julie Rains 6 months ago
I'd love to see more of this kind of innovation, esp. in healthcare. Delivering what people want and need (rather than simply trying to tweak or make *** improvements on services that they have had to settle for in the past b/c of limited options) and packaged inventively in an Apple-like shop is a great idea. Not many understand that some people want to pursue wellness, not simply get a prescription during a visit.