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Concierge Medicine Today
Research Briefs
Short, sourced examinations of the trends, data and narratives shaping concierge and membership-based medicine, written for physicians, health care leaders and researchers who need more than a headline. Search by keyword, filter by topic, or browse all 49 briefs.
Independent trade publication since 2007. Every brief names its sources. New and updated briefs label each finding by evidence type and disclose who funded each source.
Editor’s note · October 2026
How we label evidence: an update
CMT Research Briefs now label each key finding by evidence type instead of letter grade. Letters suggested a ranking, and that isn’t the point. Every kind of evidence does a different job. A clinical trial can show cause and effect. A physician survey can show what practice actually feels like. Industry data is often the only real-world operating data in our field. Each finding now carries one of five labels: Clinical Trial Evidence, Population Data, Practice Insight, Industry Research, or Policy and Law. We also disclose who funded every source. Our goal hasn’t changed: to give you the evidence and its context, so you can decide with confidence.
Michael TetreaultEditor-in-Chief, Concierge Medicine Today
Labels describe the type of evidence, not its value. Funding is disclosed on every source.
01
Learn
Review the evidence behind a trend or claim.
02
Build
Apply the findings to your own practice.
03
Lead
Share the reasoning with your team and community.
The Research Briefs
Each brief examines a specific claim, trend or data point in concierge and membership-based medicine, tested against the available evidence. CMT does not favor one practice model over another.
Twenty-six new briefs, every finding labeled by evidence type
Careers and pay, staffing, panel size, outcomes, payer contracts, HSAs, fee increases, telehealth across state lines, hospital care, family memberships, starting a practice, practice models compared, Medicare and more. Each has a “start here” question panel, evidence-type labels, funding disclosure and a “what we don’t know” section. All of them are free to read.
Starting From Zero: A New Concierge Practice
What opening a new practice requires in the first 18 months, from business plan and Medicare decision to first members.
Family and Pediatric Membership
What practices take on with family and pediatric memberships, from the Bright Futures schedule to teen privacy.
When Your Patient Is in the Hospital
Staying involved when members are hospitalized: hospitalists, privileges, discharge handoffs and transitional care codes.
Care Across State Lines
State licensure, the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact, Medicare and DEA telehealth rules, and the patient who travels.
Raising Your Membership Fee
When and how much to raise a fee, with BLS and CMS cost data, AMA ethics, notice rules and a fee-increase calculator.
Concierge Fees, HSAs and FSAs
What IRS Publications 502 and 969 say, and don’t say, about paying a concierge fee from an HSA or FSA.
Is a Membership Fee Insurance?
When state regulators have treated a retainer or membership fee as insurance, the features they weigh, and a self-check for counsel.
Insurance Contracts and Membership Fees
How payer contracts, hold-harmless clauses, Medicare assignment and the No Surprises Act affect membership fees.
Does Concierge Care Improve Outcomes?
The independent critique, the MDVIP-funded studies, continuity research and satisfaction data, with funding disclosed on each.
Panel Size: What the Evidence Says
What the time studies say about primary care panel size, how delegation changes it, and a calculator for setting a panel target.
Staffing the Membership Practice
Which roles to hire first, what BLS data say they cost, medical assistant scope by state, and why staffing benchmarks are scarce.
Working in Concierge Medicine: Pay and Contracts
Paths into concierge medicine, what federal and survey pay data show, the status of non-compete rules, and a contract checklist.
Concierge, DPC, Hybrid and Beyond: The Models, Compared
The three ways to fund a membership practice, where executive health and add-on lines fit, and the legal anchor for each.
Cybersecurity and Privacy in the AI Era
Risk analysis, AI vendor agreements and the security basics regulators enforce, for small membership practices.
Employers and Membership Medicine
Rising employer costs, the HSA tailwind and the thin savings evidence: what practices should know before contracting.
Succession, Sale or Stay
Internal succession, sale or wind-down: the options, the evidence after outside capital, and due-diligence questions.
Medicare and Membership Medicine
Participating vs. opting out, what membership fees may cover, the enforcement history, and what CMT's polls and Patient Study show.
The Patients Left Behind
Most patients don't follow a converting physician. The ethics, rules and a practical transition standard.
Longevity Medicine: An Evidence Framework
Whole-body MRI, multi-cancer tests, CAC, Lp(a) and biological age clocks, weighed against the evidence.
Does Concierge Medicine Reduce Burnout?
What has been measured about concierge physician burnout, what physicians tell CMT, and why DPC studies don't answer it.
The Membership Fee Benchmark
Why concierge medicine has no published fee benchmark, CMT's estimate, and why DPC's average belongs to a different model.
Counting Concierge
Why estimates of the field's size never match, and the CMT Census Standard for counting it transparently.
The $150 Line: HSAs and DPC
How the 2025 tax law's HSA rule for direct primary care works, and why most concierge practices won't qualify as written.
Answering the Critics
The strongest critical research on cost, mortality and equity, read fairly, with what the field still needs to prove.
The AI-Informed Patient
A third of adults now ask chatbots about their health. How membership practices can become the trusted interpreter.
AI in the Membership Practice
What the 2025 and 2026 randomized trials show about AI scribes and inbox tools, and what that means for a small-panel practice.
Own the Relationship, Lead the Care
Why physicians who share the work may keep the relationship longer, with lessons from primary care research and the subscription businesses patients already know.
MSOs and Concierge Medicine
Why concierge physicians partner with MSOs and private equity, what the evidence shows, and CMT's position statement.
The DPC Question
Why CMT's NP and PA series treats direct primary care as a separate subject, with the evidence on DPC's employer and independent paths.
The Clinicians in the Middle
Where NPs and PAs work, how burned out they are, and the evidence for designing them into membership practices.
Four Countries, One Pressure Pattern
Physician strain and NP/PA deployment in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia, compared honestly.
NPs and PAs: The Future of Primary Care
Why nurse practitioners and physician assistants may be the future of primary care, and why they're already thriving inside concierge and membership practices.
Exit Readiness Assessment
A framework for physicians thinking about finishing well, from succession planning to practice valuation.
Sleep Health and Self-Care
What the evidence says about sleep and self-care for physicians, and why it matters for the sustainability of a practice.
2026 Annual Report: The Economics of Concierge Medicine
CMT's yearly look at the financial fundamentals behind sustainable concierge and membership practices.
The Future of Membership-Based Healthcare
Where the evidence, not the hype, suggests membership-based care is headed next.
History and Evolution of Concierge Medicine
Tracing the model from its origins to its current form, and the inflection points along the way.
Concierge Medicine Marketing Playbook
A practical review of what responsible, non-hype marketing looks like for concierge and membership practices.
GLP-1 Marketing
How GLP-1 marketing claims are shaping patient expectations, and what practices should know before adopting the messaging.
AI and Your Doctor
An honest look at where artificial intelligence is, and isn't, changing the physician-patient relationship.
The CMT Patient Study
Original CMT research into why patients choose, stay with, or leave concierge and membership-based practices.
What Is Concierge Medicine?
A clear, sourced definition of concierge medicine, and how it differs from adjacent membership-based models.
Hospitals, Health Systems and Concierge Medicine
How hospitals and health systems are engaging with concierge and membership models, and why.
Specialties and Concierge Medicine
Which medical specialties are moving into membership-based care, and what they have in common.
Associations and Member Orgs
A reference map of the associations and member organizations active in concierge and membership medicine today.
Growth Math
How industry growth figures are calculated, and where "practices" and "physicians" get conflated.
Patience Is a Skill
How high-performing practices train and reinforce patience, rather than leaving it to chance.
It's All About the Access, 'Til It's Not
A look at luxury and bespoke practices in membership medicine, and where the access promise holds up under real conditions.
Camera Ready
Why physicians lose credibility in media appearances, and what the research suggests they do differently.
Educational only. Not medical, legal, tax, financial or accounting advice.
The Concierge Medicine Forum
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CMF is the annual leadership gathering for physicians and innovators building sustainable, patient-centered practices: an educational conference, not a vendor sales platform.
Our standards
How CMT Verifies Its Research
CMT is an independent publication, not an advocacy group or a vendor platform. Every brief is held to the same standards before it is published.
01
Sourced, or labeled as inference
Claims are tied to peer-reviewed journals, government data, academic institutions or named sources. Nothing is fabricated; where a source can’t be verified, the brief says so.
02
Labeled by evidence type
Key findings carry one of five labels: Clinical Trial Evidence, Population Data, Practice Insight, Industry Research, or Policy and Law. Labels describe the type of evidence, not its value. Each type answers different questions.
03
Funding disclosed
Every reference states who funded it, or says “not stated” when the source doesn’t say. CMT never guesses a funder. Peer-reviewed studies are labeled by design, whoever paid for them.
04
Editorially independent
CMT does not accept vendor sponsorship in exchange for favorable coverage, cites critics’ research, and does not promote one practice model over another.
05
Corrected in the open
When an error is identified, it is acknowledged and corrected, and the brief’s version number is updated.
06
Clear about what we don’t know
Each brief ends with the open questions the evidence can’t yet answer, so readers can see where the field still needs research.
Educational only. This page and every CMT Research Brief are educational only, not medical, legal, tax, financial or accounting advice, and nothing here creates an advisory or attorney-client relationship. Statements about regulations or legal standing are general and may not reflect the law in your state. Consult a licensed physician, attorney, tax adviser or accountant before acting on anything here.
Concierge Medicine Today, LLC, est. 2007. © 2007-2026. All rights reserved.