Another interesting development is primary care for cash, or "direct primary care". Somewhere between retail health clinics at the low end and concierge medicine at the high end, these are doctors you subscribe with for something on the order of $50 a month for a personal relationship with a primary care doctor.

Because of the compensation model, they've embraced conveniences like e-mail, phone calls and text messaging for communication, as well as once-common house calls.

They're also able to better-compensate their doctors and provide longer, more immediate appointments because they don't have nearly the overhead of an insurance-financed medical practice. This could help stem the tide of doctors leaving primary care practice (http://www.entrepreneurialmd.com/index/2008/11/18/angry-prim...), a trend which does not bode well for the future state of preventative medical care.

It's a very early trend, but I'm looking forward to seeing it develop. I currently know of Qliance (http://qliance.com/) in Seattle and Hello Health (http://hellohealth.com/) in Brooklyn. For more, you can check out videos from each organizations' founder: Dr. Garrison Bliss (http://www.tvw.org/media/mediaplayer.cfm?evid=2008030136C...) and Dr. Jay Parkinson (http://vimeo.com/2082073)