This Year’s Healthcare Trends Report: What Industry Data Reveals About Patient Acquisition, AI Search, and Retail-ization in 2026

Rising patient acquisition costs. Slim operating margins. AI this and AI that.

These are the topics shaping conversations across healthcare organizations, from private practices to pharmaceutical companies to health systems. And when it comes to solving these healthcare industry trends, the solution isn’t simple — because it requires a coordinated effort across your organization, from providers to marketing to patient experience.

This 2026 Healthcare Trends Report, however, provides a path forward by sharing:

1. Which trends to prioritize
2. How to approach these trends together vs. department-based silos
3. What these approaches could look like across organizations, from private practices to life science companies

What’s shaping this year’s healthcare trends?

Three events are driving this year’s healthcare trends:

1. 2023 – 2025: With the unwinding of Medicaid (which saw more than 17 million disenrollments), there are fewer insured patients on the market.
2. 2023 – Now: Amazon and Walmart entered the market, bringing the convenience of online shopping to healthcare.
3. 2024 – Now: AI capabilities have taken off, enabling organizations to create artificial intelligence agents that streamline tasks across operations.

The 5 healthcare trends to prioritize in 2026

The most important healthcare trends for organizations to prioritize in 2026 include:

1. AI search discovery

Search is changing — and the healthcare sector (like all the world’s industries) needs to adapt.

Like most healthcare providers, you’ve likely seen the impact of AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and other AI-powered search experiences in your website’s analytics (if you haven’t, get up-to-speed with our study, “AI Overviews in Healthcare”).

With answers available on demand, people have less of a reason to visit a website (the upside, though, is that when they do, they’re more likely to take an action, like booking an appointment).

For healthcare marketers, AI search introduces new priorities, including:

• Optimizing for brand mentions (and citations) in AI-generated responses
• Measuring brand mentions, share of visibility, and brand citations across queries (or prompts)
• Tracking how LLMs, like ChatGPT and Gemini, perceive your brand across traits, like level of care, innovation, and cost

Below is an example playbook your organization can use. For deeper guidance, check out our guide on How to Improve Your Visibility in AI Results.

Playbook

This mini-playbook highlights some of the actions your organization can take to improve its visibility and perception in AI-generated answers:

P.S. You don’t have to resort to a spreadsheet to track your performance in LLMs. See how OmniSEO® can streamline your efforts (and save you hours)!

Sector snapshots

Get a snapshot of how AI search optimization could look at your organization with these fictional examples:

2. Retail-ization

By 2030 (which is only five years away), non-traditional healthcare providers (think Walmart and Amazon) will own 30% of the primary care market.

Their advantage? Convenience.

In fact, one of the reasons these retailers’ market share isn’t growing faster is that consumers don’t realize they can do more than get their prescriptions filled. 

For traditional providers, this healthcare industry trend is your opportunity to deliver a patient experience that generates higher satisfaction and retention rates.

Playbook

Here’s a preview of what your organization can do to compete against retail-ization:

Sector snapshots

See how retail-ization can look across different organization types in these fictional examples:

3. Booking engines

An offspring of retail-ization is booking engines, and they appear here because of how important retail-ization is to the healthcare industry in 2026.

To demonstrate, consider that more than 90% of Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers would use self-service scheduling for their medical appointments if offered.

Your organization can provide an immediate and lasting value-add with a booking engine, benefiting both new and existing patients.

Playbook

See how a booking engine could benefit your patients — and team — in this playbook preview:

Sector snapshots

Get a preview of how booking engines work within different healthcare organizations in these fictional examples:

4. Agentic AI

Most healthcare industry trends focus on patients and overlook the physicians, nurses, and administrative teams. Agentic AI is different.

With agentic AI, patients and teams benefit. That’s because AI agents can serve in important, yet time-consuming functions, such as scheduling appointments, generating patient notes, or answering common questions about rescheduling, co-pays, and more.

When discussing agentic AI in healthcare, it’s important to note that it’s not about efficiency gains — it’s about redistributing time so teams can deliver more targeted care towards patients.

Playbook

Here’s a mini-playbook for how agentic AI can look across different departments within the healthcare sector:

Sector snapshots

Get ideas for how your organization could use agentic AI with these fictional examples:

Looking for professional help bringing AI agents to your organization? Explore our AI agent development and consulting services!

5. Data clean rooms

Advertising is a critical, but difficult part of healthcare operations.

Organizations need to protect patient information while also optimizing acquisition costs. Looking toward 2026, the stakes are high as digital advertising budgets continue to rise (in 2025, the healthcare sector spent almost $6 billion on social media ads alone).

That’s why it’s natural for data clean rooms to have become a trend in the healthcare industry. With data clean rooms, healthcare organizations can protect patient data while still reaping the benefits of smarter advertising audiences.

Playbook

When it comes to data clean rooms, our playbook focuses more on choosing a provider vs. implementing an advertising strategy:

Sector snapshots

See how data clean rooms could look like at your organization with these snapshots:

P.S. Curious how your advertising compares to the rest of the industry? Explore our Healthcare Marketing Benchmarks Report!

Navigate this year’s healthcare trends with industry experts

There’s no getting around it — 2026 demands immense change, and it’ll take everyone at your organization to make it happen.

From developing AI agents to providing online scheduling to navigating AI search, every department needs to adapt to better serve the marketplace. Teams don’t have to do it solo, though.

At WebFX, we bring the industry expertise you demand, plus the specialized skills you need to excel in AI search, as well as build the most effective AI agents for your organization.

Discover how we can help by contacting us online today! Or, explore our AI search optimization plans or AI agent development services!