Understanding Concierge Medicine

Imagine this: You’ve decided you want to be proactive regarding your health, one of the biggest reasons why people choose concierge medicine. You want to catch issues before they become full-blown problems. You want to get that mole checked, address your blood pressure, dive deep into nutrition, and put the same effort into aging well as you do with your retirement plan and the partnership you’ve built with your financial advisor.

In other words, you’re READY. So you make the call to your PCP’s office, eager to get going, only to discover their schedule is a lot different from yours. As in, you’re going to need to wait before you can get an appointment. And wait. And maybe wait some more.

Sadly, this isn’t unusual.

According to a 2017 survey of physician appointment wait times, “it now takes an average of 24 days to schedule a new patient physician appointment in 15 of the largest cities in the U.S.” Seeing specialists for non-emergency issues can rival that—and take longer in some cases.

Wait times are stressful for patients. When you have an ailment — or you simply want to address a concern or ask questions — waiting can wreak havoc on your psyche, with all those “what ifs” going through your head. Sometimes the hardest call to make is that first one to a doctor. So when you actually do call, only to discover you might need to wait upwards of a month or more — well, that can certainly take the wind out of your sails, right?

Doctors feel the effects of this crammed schedule as well but in a different way. As mentioned earlier, a typical PCP might be managing a roster of 3,000 patients, which can result in 25-40 patient visits per day. As such, many physicians in the U.S. feel stressed, overworked, and frustrated, since they can’t deliver the type of care they would like to, simply because there isn’t enough time to do so.

In fact, a Medscape annual survey noted, “42 percent of physicians reported that they were burned out."

Many factors contribute to physician burnout including clerical burden (for example, completing tasks in electronic health records – EHRs), alert fatigue (for example, the overwhelming amount of data and notices that come in each day), and “decision fatigue,” which Becker’s Hospital Review describes as “The more choices a person makes throughout the day, the more challenging each one becomes for the brain.”

The concierge model essentially eliminates patient wait time and decreases physician burnout because it turns the traditional model on its head.

In a concierge practice, a doctor’s roster is usually no more than 600 patients (and, in some practices, far fewer). This means patients can get in to see their doctor right away. At the same time, concierge physicians have a much more manageable 6-10 patient visits per day.

When you choose PartnerMD, you pay a membership fee, which covers all the benefits our practice has to offer. We also work with and bill your health insurance company. You are responsible for co-pays/deductibles, but your health insurance will cover the costs of approved services/procedures, just as it would if you were seeing a traditional PCP.

PartnerMD accepts most health insurance plans. Some companies, like Kaiser, restrict access to network doctors only. We are one of only a few concierge programs that accepts Medicare and Tricare. This is an extension of our guiding philosophy that regular access to a doctor is a vital component of everyone’s health and wellbeing, not merely a benefit for the wealthy.

Our membership fees vary by office and are typically around $150 to $175 per month for the first adult member. Additional adult members can be added to your account at lower rates. Prices for dependent children up to age 25 range from about $50 to $75 per month.

You can pay your membership fee annually, quarterly, or monthly, and you can cancel at any time with 30 days written notice.