Reply to Doctor's office switching to "concierge" (additional cost outside of insurance)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What are they doing extra for $2200 a year if you still have to pay for appointments and your insurance is billed?  That's what almost $200 a month, and for that I'd expect one charge appointment at least monthly.[/quote]
Seeing far fewer patients and spending more time with them.

People seem to be misunderstanding the concept of what you are paying for. Any doctor’s office has to pay for the office space and the salaries & healthcare of all of their employees. They either rely on insurance payments and book 5 patients an hour, 8 hours a day. Or they go concierge and see 4-6 patients per day and spend 1 hour with them. I view paying for concierge more as insurance (easy access when I need it) than fee-for-service. YMMV[/quote]

+1000
That is exactly what you are paying for!  My physical was 1.25 hours last week.  I scheduled it 2 weeks before. 
When I need to see a doctor, I always get in that day (it may be a different doc in the concierge practice but I get to see a concierge doc that day) and the "sick" appt is 20-30 mins, no rushing me out to see another 4 patients in the hour.  
If I have a major concern at 10pm or 2am, I can text the doc on call and get a call back within 5 mins or less.  They will sit on the phone to schedule appointments (so I dont' have to waste 20 mins doing it).  For $200/month, it's worth it to our family.

Also, in our area many family/internal med docs are just quitting.  [b]There are not enough so you can be 3-5 months out scheduling a physical or appt with your normal doctor. [/b] I prefer to have easy access so will happily pay for it.  That's worth me not getting Starbucks daily or the equivalent.

[/quote]

That's when I went concierge -- when the first available physical with my doctor was 6 months out. [/quote]
Having recently moved, I was concerned about this, but was able to get an appointment quickly with an APN who is genuinely excellent, and seamlessly set up necessary referrals/labs.

There are challenges to this new approach (longer wait times), but I was very pleasantly surprised at the upsides. The staff is less stressed because the workload is more balanced and coordinated, having all of the info in one place is a safety and stress benefit for patients, and overall, the experience felt somewhat concierge-like, even in a huge health system.

Meanwhile, trying to coordinate dental health with several independent specialist providers has been much more stressful, with little to no electronic record management or autonomy on the patient side, occasionally very long wait times, and trying to discern what to do when the advice is conflicting (with second opinions often creating another round of the same process).

So while most providers have been excellent, the sense of continuity and oversight has been more notable in the larger system. [/quote]

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