Hospitals cash in on a private equity-backed trend: concierge physician care

Nonprofit hospitals are increasingly adopting concierge physician practices that charge patients annual membership fees exceeding $2,000. This trend, initially prevalent in individual physician practices, aims to boost physician income while reducing patient loads.

Critics of concierge medicine argue that the model worsens primary care shortages by catering primarily to affluent patients. This approach, they maintain, not only increases healthcare costs but also restricts access for those who can't afford the fees.

Concierge physicians limit their patient lists to a few hundred, enabling immediate access and more extended consultations unlike traditional primary care doctors with larger patient loads, pointing to the growing challenge in general population access to primary care.

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