Concierge medicine is a business model in which a doctor charges patients a monthly or annual membership fee — even as the patients continue paying insurance premiums, copays, and deductibles. In exchange for the membership fee, doctors limit their number of patients. Many physicians who’ve made the change said it resolved some of the pressures they faced in primary care, such as having too many patients to see in too short a time. Although numbers are not tracked in any one place, the trade magazine Concierge Medicine Today estimates there are 7,000 to 22,000 concierge physicians in the U.S. Membership fees range from $1,000 to as high as $50,000 a year.
Read the full article: In Rural Massachusetts, Patients and Physicians Weigh Trade-Offs of Concierge Medicine //
Source: https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/concierge-medicine-direct-primary-care-doctor-shortage-rural-western-massachusetts/