How it started
History
The concierge medicine model, although not the term, originated with MD² International, which was founded in 1996 in Seattle by Dr. Howard Maron and Dr. Scott Hall. At the time, Maron was physician for the Seattle SuperSonics sports team, and sought to provide luxury primary care services similar to what he had been providing these athletes. MD²'s model included physician patient loads of 50 families, dramatically reduced compared with the conventional American patient load of about 3,000 patients per year. Advantages include very quick access to your personal physician as needed, and the ability to see doctors in any of 10 major cities at a greatly increased cost.
MD² clients have insurance to cover additional services beyond primary care, but MD²'s fees cover the full costs of their services and MD² does not bill insurance.
MD²'s approach became widely known very quickly, and many physicians sought to emulate the model in a less costly fashion. MDVIP emerged as a competitor to MD² with a similar model, but they opted to bill insurance in addition to charging client fees and have patient loads of up to 600. This enabled them to charge substantially lower rates. In 2006 SignatureMD was founded which offered more flexible conversion options. By 2010, one quarter of all doctors operating with a concierge medicine model were affiliated with MDVIP. In 2017, a new company named Forward, started by former Google and Uber employees with strong venture capital support, began offering concierge medicine services for equivalent to $200 in 2025 per month.
Common services include 24/7 phone access, same-day appointments, short waiting times, preventative health and wellness services, and accompaniment when seeing specialists or in the emergency room.
By 2000, there were a handful of concierge medicine providers in the United States. In 2005, there were about 500 physicians practicing using the model. By 2008, there were over 100,000 people contracting with about 300 physicians. By 2010, there were over 5,000 physicians in over 500 providers using the model.
From Wikipedia’s article on MD² International, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2