What if there was an Apple Store for your health? That’s the idea ConnectiCare is embracing as it opens a new retail store in Manchester.

At the new store on Pleasant Valley Road, ConnectiCare consultants will assist their customers on how to file a claim or find a doctor.

“We know health insurance is complicated and sometimes you want to speak to someone face to face,”  David Gordon, senior vice president of strategy and innovation, said. “You can do that in our retail centers. We see these centers as another way for us to deliver the high-quality service we have been delivering to our neighbors for the past 35 years.”

The innovation was applauded by Access Health CT, the state-run insurance exchange.

“We commend ConnectiCare on this new effort to work within communities, providing in-person education and support on healthcare and other health issues around the state,” Access Health CEO Jim Wadleigh, said. “These new storefronts are a positive development for customer experience, and will hopefully prove an added community resource for healthcare information to many CT residents that are served by ConnectiCare, both on-exchange and off-exchange.”

Three more retail locations will open in late November inside the new CliniSanitas Medical Centers in Newington, Bridgeport, and Orange. The new CliniSanitas will offer primary care, specialty care, urgent care, walk-in care, laboratory and diagnostic imaging services, as well as health education and wellness services. All will offer extended evening and weekend hours and the staff will speak both English and Spanish. They will only serve ConnectiCare customers.

”Health care is very personal and having a good relationship with your doctor is essential,” ConnectiCare President and CEO Michael Wise has said. “Members want to discuss their health and receive care in their preferred language, at times and locations that are convenient for them.”

Wise said CliniSanitas has a proven track record of serving a diverse population through this model and that’s why ConnectiCare wanted to partner with them to serve Connecticut’s growing Hispanic population. 

CliniSanitas Medical Centers are part of a leading multinational health business group operating in Florida and several South American countries.

ConnectiCare offers plans both on and off Connecticut’s insurance exchange.

The company, which briefly threatened to leave the exchange last month after not getting the rate increase it felt it needed, has nearly 50,000 customers in its exchange-based plans. It has another 37,142 in its off-exchange plans in the individual market. It also offers plans in the small group market where it has another nearly 50,000 customers.