Concierge Medicine For The 99%

While concierge medicine started as a service offered by rich doctors to rich patients, more and more doctors are converting their practices to a concierge model because it allows them to practice medicine in the way they hoped to practice medicine when they first became doctors.

A concierge doctor typically only sees 16 patients a day. That's about half an hour per patient. Many times the patient walks into the clinic and is greeted by the doctor, not by a receptionist. E-mail contact is welcomed. And nobody gets put on hold when calling in.

Or at least that is the ideal. A few medical practices have actually pulled off concierge medicine for people who don't have lots of money.

• Greenhouse Internists, founded by Richard Baron, a physician and former chairman of the American Board of Internal Medicine, operates a concierge medical practice in Philadelphia that doesn't even charge an annual fee.
• Dr. Tom X. Lee, an physician trained at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital and also a Stanford MBA and founder of the website Epocrates, organized One Medical to offer concierge medicine in New York and San Francisco for just $150 to $200 per year. With 31 physicians, One Medical routinely offers same-day appointments. It does not charge for answering questions by email or for issuing prescription refills. And unlike other concierge practices, One Medical will even work with Medicare and Medicaid for patients who cannot afford the $150 to $200 basic fee.
• GreenField Medical in Portland, Oregon, offers its services for a sliding-scale free of $195 to $695 per year, still vastly less than what other concierge doctors charge. Its doctors spend about half the day seeing patients and about half the day answering questions by email and by phone.
• Dr. Samir Qamar's 16 MedLion clinics in 7 states charge $59 a month for membership and $10 for each doctor's visit, never billing insurance.

Read More: What To Do When Your Doctor Won't Listen

Is concierge medicine right for you? Here are some things to consider:

• Even if you have concierge doctor, you still need medical insurance in case you have to go the hospital or see a specialist. If you just can't pay your premiums (and you should look at the possiblity of coverage with a company that gives you advanced credit for deductible assistance), consider a Bronze plan that may be low-cost or free or even come with a refundable tax credit before you go without any insurance at all.
• Don't expect to use your health insurance at the concierge doctor's office, however. About 40% of the expense of running a medical practice is billing insurance companies, and it's by eliminating this step that the doctors are able to charge less.
• If your medical insurance deductible is $5,000 or more, then it probably makes sense to look for a doctor who runs a concierge or membership medical practice. Since you would wind up paying for routine office visits out of pocket anway, it's easier to budget a monthly fee than it is to come up with a few hundred to a few thousand dollars when you get sick.
• You don't have to pay a lot for premium medical care. There are over 5,500 concierge medical clinics in the United States, and 2/3 of them charge $135 a month or less.