Cost: $2,000 a year ($500 for a child). In return, you get 24-hour access to doctors, unhurried appointments, home visits and state-of-the-art annual physicals. In some cases, you get cell phone and e-mail access. “Concierge” or “boutique” doctors are stepping outside the insurance system and repackaging and repricing their services. Explains one doctor:
Traditional practice right now is totally geared toward the treatment of illness….. For those patients who want what the system does not offer, shouldn’t they be given the choice? When I know I am not managing your Type 2 diabetes because I only have 10 minutes and God forbid you end up blind or amputated as a result, something is wrong with the morality of that approach and the ethics.
The good thing about this is that the market for primary care is beginning to open up and become a real market.
Only by escaping from the third-party payers can doctors be free to repackage and reprice their services — the way Michael Porter says they should do.
Question: Is there a way to combine concierge care with limited benefits insurance and three share type insurance?
Answer to Tom: Concierge care is a form of limited benefits insurance.
I’ve been unable to locate a concierge doctor in the
memphis tn area. any suggestions on how to find’one?