With concierge medicine you get direct access to your doctor 24/7 as well as office visits that are unhurried and scheduled on short notice. But more importantly, you form a team with your physician. He/she has only a limited number of patients and is able to really get to know you and what you desire for your health.

Optimal aging involves addressing nutrition, fitness, stress, toxins, and hormone balancing among other things.

Traditional non concierge practices simply do not have the time to address all of this. Due to insurance constraints they must see numerous patients each hour in order to stay afloat, thus it is easier to simply throw medications at patients and not look into the underlying issues.

Optimal aging can be achieved with a concierge physician. In this type of practice the patient invests in his/her health by paying an annual fee that allows the physician to work outside the constraints of insurances. Because there is a small financial investment on the patient’s part, a concierge practice attracts patients who are interested in achieving optimal aging. This is a win win combination: a patient who is invested in their health and a physician who is dedicated to helping each patient achieve optimal health.

Bob had been given a prescription for a new medication from a specialist for a serious problem that he was having. The problem was that his insurance required a prior authorization to get it covered. The specialist office was not responding to this request and Bob was stuck in the middle.

Luckily Bob is my concierge patient and he got in touch with me to let me know the issue. My staff and I got right on top of it and within 24 hours the medication was approved. He got the medicine and he is now on the road to recovery.

These days traditional medical offices are overloaded and can not properly take care of things in a timely manner. In a concierge practice the doctor limits her practice to a few hundred patients instead of having several thousand patients. This allows the staff and the doctor to take care of your needs in a timely fashion. It costs about $5 per day and you get personalized care that traditional practices are unable to offer.

Nicole had abdominal bloating for quite some time. She had seen the gastroenterologist and had a CT scan done, an upper and lower endoscopy, and extensive lab work. Everything looked good so the doctor told her she was fine and tried to give her an anti depressant medication.

She joined my concierge practice because she knew that I offered personalized integrative medicine and did not want unnecessary medications. After extensively reviewing her history we decided that a food sensitivity was a likely cause (even though the GI doctor had told her that food was not the cause). It took a little time and patience but we figured it out. Now with specific food avoidance and some basic supplements, she is without abdominal bloating and we are working on her hormone balancing.

Concierge medicine involves the patient paying a minimal fee (which equates to about $5 per day) in order to augment the low payments from insurance companies. This allows the physician to spend more time with her patients than insurances allow. Obviously more time results in more in depth care and this is the only way a physician can truly get to the root of your issues and also work with you to keep you healthy once you feel good again. Concierge medicine allows for team work between you and your physician.

Doctor’s offices are getting over crowded and unable to accommodate patients in a timely manner. The doctors are forced to see more patients to keep the doors open and are overworked. Patients are getting sicker, on more medications and having more chronic diseases. This is a result of a health care system that is broken—it basically pays physicians based on the diseases that they diagnose-there is no reward for true preventive care, the insurance companies dictate what the doctors can do and what they get paid, and many patients expect insurance companies to pay for everything and not to pay a penny out of pocket. This is not a good way for the public or doctors to be healthy. Concierge medicine addresses these issues. In a concierge practice the doctor limits his/her practice to a few hundred patients instead of having 1500-2000 patients-seeing 8-12 patients per day instead of 25-30.

Each concierge patient has direct access to the doctor 24/7 if needed. Office visits are typically a half hour instead of 10 minutes and the patient can get in the same day for urgent issues and within a few days to a week for non urgent issues. Annual physicals are about an hour and a half between in office testing and doctor face to face time. The focus is on optimizing your health–not just putting out fires and waiting for catastrophes to happen, which is all a traditional practice has time to do.

In order to offer this type of we quality time intensive service the patient takes on some financial responsibility. You can no longer rely on insurance to cover everything. Your insurance is used for lab work, radiology studies, office visits, and hospitalizations. To get the services of a concierge doctor you pay a small annual fee to the doctor that equates to about $5 per day. This fee allows the doctor to treat you fully as stated above because the annual fee that you pay offsets the poor reimbursements from insurance companies. This is a win win–the doctor is not over worked and the patient gets personalized care.

If you are a business owner or manager then you will want to look further into concierge medicine. If you are an employee you will want to ask your employer to look into concierge medicine. It is a win win situation. Healthy employees are more productive at work and miss less time from work AND live a happier more fulfilling life outside of work. Traditional insurance based health care is focused on illness, whereas concierge medicine is focused on health. Being healthy means being happy at work and at home.

As components of the Affordable Care Act are implemented businesses have new mandates regarding the provision of healthcare benefits. Innovative and engaged employers are turning to MDVIP (a well known and respected concierge medicine program) to offer their employees an affordable program for healthcare that has proven results.

Because of the high quality of care the MDVIP concierge doctors deliver, the MDVIP model has been proven to offer superior results. This has been proven through clinical data and several studies now published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals that shine the spotlight on MDVIP’s positive health outcomes and resulting cost savings–to both employers and employees. In addition to the American Journal of Managed Care and theInternational Journal of Person Centered Medicine, MDVIP’s most recent recognition in Future Cardiology shows that the MDVIP Wellness Program is identifying more patients at risk of cardiovascular disease through the multi-marker lab panel provided by Cleveland HeartLab.

MDVIP has the national footprint and published outcomes data to provide companies a cost-effective benefit option that supports their business goals of healthier, more productive employees and a healthier bottom line. Employees love the fact that they get personalized health care focused on their health and well being, employers love the fact that their employees are more productive. It truly is a win win situation.

Below is from an actual real life patient who uses concierge medicine.

I went for my mammogram and they told me it was abnormal. I can’t even tell you how worried I was!! I called my concierge physician right away. She helped explain everything to me and calmed me down. My doctor had her staff get me in for the biopsy as quick as possible. She made sure that I was doing OK. When the results on the biopsy came in she called me and went over them with me.

Luckily everything was OK. Knowing that my doctor was there for me through this whole process was priceless! It is nothing to spend $5 a day to have a doctor who cares about me and is there to guide me through the confusing medical world.