Practice of Greed Vs Self Preservation

Personalized/concierge practices are designed to give you extended and personalized care and greater access to your doctor – including 24/7 pager/phone access and same day and longer appointments. Patients sign a contract and pay a monthly or an annual fee, typically in addition to other charges (i.e., your normal co-payments and deductibles). These fees are highly variable depending on the level and type of service, but generally do not cover specialist visits, laboratory tests, medical procedures, prescriptions, hospitalizations or emergency room visits. The leading company in the field, Florida-based network MDVIP (mdvip.com), has a typical annual fee of $1,500 per adult patient and an upper limit for practice size of 600 patients per physician. In upscale communities like New York City many doctors with a concierge practice charge twice that or more… deluxe boutiques in places like Miami Beach and Beverly Hills may have fees that exceed $100,000 (and include extravagant perks). Critics charge that concierge medicine is exclusionary and elitist, since not everyone can afford it, but Dr. Gruman points out that our medical system is already multi-tiered. If you can afford it and believe you would benefit from this kind of certain, focused medical attention, it is worth exploring the options available to you locally, she said.