You call your doctor's office with a question that's been nagging at you for a week, and you get a scheduler instead of a physician. The appointment they offer is six weeks out. When you finally sit down with your doctor, you get maybe twelve minutes before they're on to the next patient waiting in the hallway. If that sounds familiar, you're not imagining the shift. Primary care has been squeezed by shrinking visit times and growing patient panels, and plenty of good doctors are just as frustrated by it as their patients are.
Concierge medicine grew out of that frustration. It's personalized healthcare built around a membership rather than an insurance code: same-day appointments, a physician who actually knows your history, and a doctor-patient relationship that doesn't reset every visit. Dr. Kenneth Redcross built Redcross Concierge on that principle back in 2005, long before "concierge" became a familiar word in mainstream healthcare conversations.
If you're weighing whether to enroll, the process is more straightforward than most people expect, though it's worth understanding the mechanics before you sign anything. We've answered a lot of the surface-level questions already in our concierge medicine FAQ, so consider this the deeper walk-through: what enrollment actually looks like, what you're paying for, and where this model isn't the right fit for everyone.
What Is Concierge Medicine, Exactly?
Concierge medicine, sometimes called direct primary care in its leaner forms, is a healthcare model where patients pay a retainer fee to a physician or practice in exchange for enhanced access and a smaller patient panel. Instead of a doctor managing 2,000 to 3,000 patients, which is common in traditional insurance-based practices, a concierge physician might manage a few hundred. That difference is what makes 24-7 access and same-day visits possible, and it's the same principle Dr. Redcross, who has appeared as a medical expert on national programs like The Doctors and The Insider, built his own practice around.
The membership fee doesn't typically replace your health insurance. It pays for access and relationship, not for hospital stays, surgeries, or most specialist care. We'll get into how that split actually works a little further down.
How to Get Started in Concierge Medicine?
Getting started usually means scheduling an introductory consultation with the practice, reviewing the membership agreement and fee structure, completing a health history intake, and setting a start date for your retainer. Most concierge practices, including ours, can enroll a new patient within a few weeks once paperwork and an initial physical are scheduled.
Here's what that looks like in practice, step by step:
- Schedule an introductory call or in-office consultation to meet the physician and ask questions about scope of care.
- Review the membership agreement, including what's covered under the retainer and what falls outside it.
- Complete a detailed health history intake, including current medications, past diagnoses, and family history.
- Confirm your enrollment start date and retainer payment schedule, whether that's annual or broken into monthly installments.
- Book your first extended physical exam, typically 60 to 90 minutes rather than the rushed 15-minute version.
- Set up direct contact channels, a private phone line, email, or a patient portal, so you know exactly how to reach your physician after hours.
That last step matters more than people expect going in. The point of direct access isn't marketing language. It's the actual mechanism that makes same-day answers and after-hours peace of mind possible in the first place.
What's Actually Included in a Concierge Medicine Membership?
The specifics vary by practice, but most concierge memberships bundle a similar core set of services around a customized approach to care. At Redcross Concierge, that typically includes:
- A thorough annual physical exam that runs well beyond the standard 15-minute checkup
- 24-7 direct access to your physician by phone or email, including nights and weekends
- Same-day or next-day appointments for acute concerns
- House calls and work calls when travel to the office isn't practical
- Coordinated specialist referrals, with your concierge physician managing the handoff
- Medication management and prescription coordination across providers
- Preventive screening, wellness planning, and stress management guidance
- Access to integrative and homeopathic treatment options alongside conventional care
What it doesn't typically include is the cost of hospitalization, surgery, imaging, or specialist visits themselves. Those still run through your insurance, if you have it. We break down the exact line items in our post on what's actually included in a concierge medicine membership, which is worth reading before you compare practices side by side.
Concierge Doctor Cost Per Month: What's the Membership Fee?
Concierge medicine membership fees generally run between $1,500 and $5,000 per year, though some boutique practices charge more. Monthly, that works out to roughly $125 to $420. The exact number depends on the physician's experience, the practice's patient panel size, and how much house-call or travel access is built into the membership.
It's a real number, and it's fair to want to know exactly what you're getting for it before you commit. We've done a full breakdown, including how the math compares to what people already spend on urgent care visits, missed workdays, and delayed diagnoses, in the true cost of concierge medicine membership.
How Does Concierge Medicine Work With Insurance?
Concierge medicine and health insurance work side by side rather than replacing each other. Your membership fee covers access and relationship with your physician, while your insurance still covers hospitalizations, specialist visits, surgeries, and most prescription costs. Some concierge practices will also bill your insurance for standard covered services in addition to the retainer.
Concierge medicine and Medicare is where this gets more specific. Medicare doesn't pay retainer fees, since they're considered a membership charge rather than a covered medical service. Medicare patients can still enroll in most concierge practices, though, and use their Medicare benefits normally for covered services like labs, imaging, and specialist care. If a practice accepts Medicare assignment, it will typically continue billing Medicare for anything that falls under standard covered care, while the retainer itself is paid out of pocket. We go deeper on this interaction, including what happens with high-deductible plans and HSAs, in how concierge medicine and health insurance interact.
"Regular preventive visits and screenings help physicians catch health problems early, often before symptoms appear, which is when many conditions are easiest to treat."
What Is the Downside to Concierge Medicine?
The most obvious downside is cost. Paying a retainer on top of your existing insurance premium is a real financial commitment, and it's not one every household should make. Concierge medicine isn't the right fit if you're generally healthy, rarely see a doctor, or don't place much value on same-day access.
There are legitimate problems with concierge medicine worth naming honestly. It can feel exclusionary, since patient panels are intentionally kept small, which means access is, by definition, limited to people who can pay the fee. It also doesn't replace specialist care or hospital coverage, so patients still need solid insurance underneath it. And if your current doctor announces they're retiring or converting their whole practice to a $10,000-a-year concierge model, you're not obligated to follow them. That's a good moment to shop around and compare a lower-cost concierge practice against a strong traditional primary care option before deciding either way.
What to Expect After You Enroll
The first few weeks are mostly information gathering. Your physician reviews your full health history, orders any baseline labs that are overdue, and schedules that first extended physical. Most patients notice the shift immediately just from the appointment length alone. Instead of feeling rushed, you're sitting with a physician who has time to ask follow-up questions and actually listen to the answers.
Within the first three to six months, expect a clearer picture of your baseline health: updated screenings, a stress management plan if that's relevant to you, and a proactive approach to anything that showed up as a risk factor. This isn't a quick fix, and it isn't meant to be. It's a longer runway toward a caring, trusting relationship with a physician who knows your history well enough to catch small changes before they become bigger problems. Patients trying to decide whether that shift is worth the retainer fee should read our ROI analysis of concierge medicine, which lays out the math in plain terms.
"Continuity of care, seeing the same physician over time, has been linked in multiple studies to lower mortality rates and better management of chronic disease."
Practical Tips for Choosing the Right Concierge Practice
Not every concierge practice is built the same way, and the fee alone won't tell you much. Exceptional bedside manner matters here more than it does in a high-volume practice, since you're building a long-term relationship, not just booking a visit. A few other things worth checking before you sign a membership agreement:
- Ask exactly what's included versus what still bills through insurance, in writing, not just verbally.
- Confirm the physician's patient panel size. A "concierge" practice with 1,500 patients isn't offering the same access as one with 300.
- Check credentials and experience. Board-certified providers with a long track record in internal medicine or a related specialty tend to bring more judgment to complex cases.
- Ask how after-hours contact actually works. Is it a real physician on the line, or an answering service?
- Get a straight answer on house calls and work calls if travel or flexibility matters to you.
- Ask about seasonal guidance too. Flu prevention and vaccination timing are a good test of how proactive a practice really is.
The CDC recommends yearly flu vaccination for nearly everyone six months and older as the best protection against seasonal illness, and a genuinely wellness-focused practice should be raising that conversation with you every fall, not waiting for you to ask first.
Enrolling in concierge medicine isn't complicated, but it is a decision worth making with your eyes open. The paperwork takes a few weeks. The relationship takes longer to build, and that's the actual point of it. Dr. Kenneth Redcross has spent more than two decades building that kind of relationship with patients who wanted a physician who picks up the phone, not just a name on an insurance card. Personalized healthcare, direct access, trusted care: if that's what you're looking for, the next step is simply a conversation.