The doctor is (always) in, if you pay enough

(Gannett)

For anyone who has ever waited days or weeks to see the doctor, concierge medicine sounds appealing: For an additional fee, patients typically enjoy same-day appointments and 24-hour access, more face time with the doctor and extra preventative care.

Doctors who offer concierge medicine say the practice frees them from the constraints imposed by insurance providers and allows them time to give patients the individualized attention they need. Skeptics argue that concierge medicine promotes a two-tiered system, improving health care for a few but worsening it for everyone else.

“It’s an attempt to formalize two-class medicine,” says Wharton professor of health care management Mark V. Pauly. “Those who can pay will get better treatment with a smile, and those who can’t will have to wait.”

Sometimes called boutique medicine, retainer-based medicine or direct care, concierge medicine is a small but growing practice. It started in Seattle in 1996, when Howard Maron, a former team doctor for the old Seattle Supersonics professional basketball team, left his traditional practice of about 3,000 patients and launched a program called MD2, providing exclusive medical care to about 50 families for a retainer.

Today, concierge doctors in the United States serve almost a million patients, according to the American Academy of Private Physicians (AAPP), a national association of physicians who provide concierge medicine and fee-for-service health care. The academy estimates there are about 3,500 concierge doctors nationwide, up from about 2,400 just 18 months ago. It expects the number to double every 12 to 18 months for the next three years.