When you become a member of a medical concierge practice, you can expect to experience the following:

1. You'll have time to talk, listen, and digest.

During office visits, it's important for you to have time to talk about what's on your mind and for your doctor to listen. While doctors in traditional healthcare practices would like to spend time listening to you, the incredible caseload so many of them carry (they often juggle over 2000+ patients) makes it hard for them to spend a lot of time with each patient.

In a medical concierge practice, however, the doctors carry a significantly reduced caseload so that they can carve out plenty of time for each patient. This means if you need an hour (or longer) for every visit so that you can discuss what's going on, ask questions, and so forth, you have it. Plus, concierge doctors are notorious for communicating with patients in between visits.

2. You'll have the opportunity to develop a true partnership with your doctor.

Sure, it's possible to have a good relationship with a primary care physician in a traditional model, but it's not always easy for this to happen, due to time restraints. If your PC has to rush through office visits in order to stay on schedule, it makes it challenging to develop a meaningful relationship let alone a partnership.

Not so in a medical concierge practice. The whole point of concierge medicine is to emphasize that personal touch—something akin to the doctors who used to make house calls a century ago. Because you typically see the same doctor for every visit and because you spend quality time with this doctor, you and he/she can work towards building a meaningful partnership.

3. You'll be able to shift more easily from an illness perspective to a wellness perspective.

Too often in western medicine, we only think about our doctors when we're sick. But what if we thought about them when we're well? A doctor's true calling, after all, is to restore our health…and make sure it stays that way. In other words, wellness visits are just as vital as sick visits. But imagine trying to schedule a quarterly or monthly wellness visit with a traditional healthcare practice.

Most medical concierge practices today embrace the idea of personal wellness. And if that means checking in with patients quarterly, monthly, or even weekly, concierge doctors are able to do so because they're handling a significantly smaller caseload. (Note: we're not suggesting traditional PCs don't care about wellness. Of course they do! But their schedules are already so tight with sick visits.)

4. You might still feel anxious when you or your loved one falls ill during the middle of the night or on the weekend, but you'll have easier access to YOUR doctor.

Sure, traditional healthcare practices have after-hours phone services. This means if your baby is sick in the middle of the night and you call, the answering service will contact the on-call doctor (whom you might not even be familiar with) so he or she can phone you back.

With concierge medicine, this "middle man" approach is removed. Most concierge doctors supply their patients with their personal cell numbers and email so that you can get in touch with them right away when YOU need them. As a result, you'll likely make fewer visits to the ER or urgent care centers, which will save you time, stress, and money.

Concierge medicine, of course, isn't right for everyone. We certainly understand that some people are quite happy with their primary care physicians. If this is you, that's great. But if you're curious to learn more, consider downloading our free checklist: Is Concierge Medicine Right for You?