5 Things To Know About Concierge Medicine

Healthcare machinery is in flux. The Government medical setup with an exponential increase in patient load is under tremendous stress. Insurance companies are finding it difficult to clear claims of so many people.

It has initiated a change. What was restricted previously to certain sections of society and unheard of is coming to the forefront. Concierge medical practice is one area that has moved away from being limited to the affluent class and is gaining a stronghold amongst the masses.

With rising people’s incomes, there is an ever-increasing demand for efficient services in exchange for money. Those with an average earning potential are drifting to avail previously premium services like a concierge to avoid the hassles of a traditional doctor visit.

What Is Concierge Medical Practice?

In easy terms, this practice is a monthly/annual premium subscription to the doctor’s clinic. Here, people can constantly contact their doctors for primary healthcare. The doctor is available 24 X 7, and the people receive a prioritized appointment with them and get referred to specialized hospitals for complicated surgical and other treatments. This recommendation helps people to accelerate the admission process in specialized hospitals.

The valuation of this practice was 5.5 billion USD in 2024 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10% till 2030. People can visit this site to access concierge doctors of Denver who deliver a wide range of services in the form of mobile healthcare.

A primary healthcare doctor in a metropolitan area has an average of 4000 patients to diagnose and a wait time of almost 20 minutes for every patient, which makes their accessibility difficult for a new patient. Concierge medical practice helps the medical fraternity bypass the bureaucratic hurdles that prolong the treatment, frustrating both the patient and the doctor. An advanced retainer fee eases the burden of constantly waiting for doctor appointments with a rapid testing process.

Benefits Of The Concierge System Over Traditional Medicine

The traditional medicine system works based on a service fee. The patients schedule an appointment, stand in a long line to submit the required payments, get the cure for their immediate illness, and then carry on with their lives until they suffer from some disease, and the cycle repeats.

More than the doctor, the patients spend time filling up forms in offices, getting claims from insurance companies, buying hefty priced medicines, and visiting clinics frequently to squeeze in an appointment. There is hardly any primary healthcare doctor who pays attention to the family medical history or preventive care. The focus is limited to the immediately visible symptoms and the necessary cure. Those who focus on getting to the root cause of illness are limited and expensive for a common person. To keep their business running and profitable, doctors take up more patients than they can effectively manage, reducing patient-doctor interaction and increasing temporary health fixes.

The concierge system’s various benefits in healthcare can effectively counter some drawbacks of traditional medicine. Some of them are listed as follows:

• Bureaucracy and stress: In this practice, the personal connection between the patient and the doctor enhances by eliminating bureaucratic hurdles. The primary healthcare system based on insurance takes a long time for patients to avail adequate attention from the doctor.

The panel of patients is limited, which enables the doctors to diagnose them in a detailed manner that helps the patients in the form of better healthcare and the doctor in the form of less stress.

• Waiting time: In this age and time, when people are busy with their professional and personal commitments, it is difficult to squeeze in time for exploring different clinics and finding doctors who offer the best services in less time. Concierge doctors come to the rescue in situations like these.

People availing of the service can bypass the legal needs of booking appointments and sitting in a crowded hospital waiting room to access a doctor. The accessibility of doctors improves, contributing to timely care, personal attention at all times, and circumvention of regular procedures to get admitted to specialized healthcare facilities.

• Multiple services: People can access multiple primary care services ranging from blood tests, lab visits, personalized home visits by health attendants, discounted medicines, etc. Those with sensitive, prolonged health conditions benefit from the overall cost reduction. The system and individual health check-ups otherwise would burn a hole in the pocket of many.
• Telehealth: Telehealth consultations and treatments ensure a doctor’s availability in urgent times and a sustainable income source for the doctors. COVID-19 shows how any industry can perish financially in the face of a black swan event. Many doctors found themselves overworked, while there were others whose private clinics shut down for failing to embrace technology. Telehealth consultations have gained steam post the crisis, allowing both patients and doctors to be in their comfortable spaces and interact with each other.

It not only ensures a general availability of healthcare attendants but also enhances the patient’s convenience, who at the time of sickness is not in a position to linger by the clinic now and then.

• Family check-ups: People can consult the doctor for a complete family check-up which is much more economical than separate consultations. People do not have to visit different clinics for different aged family members. The doctor’s familiarity with the family’s medical history helps identify the problems quickly and ensures effective treatment.

This familiarity also helps doctors identify potential threats to the person’s health owing to their traditional medical history. A long-term engagement with the doctor enables people to take advance precautions before matters turn critical.

Conclusion

Access to medical facilities in every nook and corner of the world is a dream soon becoming a reality. It is important to pay attention to the fact that the doctor-to-patient ratio is witnessing an exponential rise. With a limited specialized medical workforce and an ever-increasing patient load, timely access to healthcare is becoming harder. Concierge Medicine is a reliable solution to this issue. More doctors are enrolling to provide these services for better financial opportunities, health examinations, and opportunities to pursue something they love.