Hybrid Concierge Medicine
The ultimate solution for doctors and patients.
Most of us have heard about Concierge Medicine by now. The rise in concierge medicine has been explosive the past few years..something like 500 practices in 2005 to 5000 now in operation across the United States. There are even TV shows alluding to the most extreme options in concierge medical care.
Doctors: especially primary care and internal physicians, are having to over- extend themselves to long hours and high patient volumes due to low reimbursement rates from insurance companies. They have to squeeze in more and more patients everyday just to meet their operating costs.
Patients: Are looking for a better option than waiting weeks for an appointment, hours in the waiting rooms, and rushed visits once they finally get in to see the doctor.
Concierge Medicine solves both these problems.
Traditional Concierge Medicine is a platform that follows a formula such as this: Doctor X has 2,500-10,000 patients and wants to transition to a concierge practice that offers VIP treatment to a small number…600 or so patients. The physician charges $1,500 per patient per year and for that yearly fee the patient receives preferred access to the physician.
The doctor now has created an instant revenue stream of $200,000-$600,000 per year if the transition is successful. One of the major parameters of transitioning to a full medical concierge practice is this: The doctor sends out a letter to their patients which basically says ” Either stay with me and pay the yearly fee or leave”.
Patients who opt out of the concierge service, are now forced to find another physician and to put it lightly…..are not happy about the situation.
There is also a Hybrid Concierge Medicine model taking place right now which is on the rise and for good reason. It is the same model as the traditional concierge care model, but the physician does not have to turn away their current patients who do not opt in to the preferred access concierge program. They do not have to give up ownership of their practice when partnering with a concierge management group as well. They do not lose control. They simply offer a preferred access option to their patient base. They retain the added revenue from the opt in patients and those patients who do not opt- in still receive the same level of access they had before implementation of the program. The letters, contracts, operations including servicing, billing, collecting, packaging, marketing, coordinating, etc can either be handled in-house or outsourced to experienced groups who will do it all for them. The benefit to physicians is more time, more revenue, and less dependency on volume of patients.
The benefit to opt-in patients is quicker appointment times…usually same or next business day, no waits at the doctors’ offices, decreased paperwork, consolidated medical records, and with a only a few of these concierge services- preferred access to nationwide networks of specialists, and even global access to elite physicians. Those patients who do not partake in the preferred access offering still receive the same access to the doctor as before.
Look for this to take off in 2010 and onward.