Industry’s Annual Conference
October 15-17, 2026 | Atlanta, GA USA
CHALLENGING ASSUMPTIONS
“Concierge medicine isn’t exacerbating the physician shortage — it’s revealing it. And that’s a good thing. Every industry eventually faces a moment when disruption forces reflection and reinvention — this is healthcare’s moment. One longtime doctor told us, ‘The system didn’t break overnight. It’s been eroding for decades. Concierge medicine just held up a mirror.’ Critics may not like that, but that’s often what happens when new ideas challenge old assumptions. Change makes people uncomfortable — especially when it highlights what’s not working.”
— Editor-in-Chief, Concierge Medicine Today | Listen to Latest Podcast Episode →
The Numbers, Real clear, made simple.
“Concierge and membership-based medicine remain a small but structurally meaningful segment of U.S. healthcare. Most industry and workforce estimates suggest roughly 8,000 to 12,000 practices nationwide operate within some form of membership or subscription structure. Depending on practice size, that represents well under two percent of the U.S. physician workforce.
This is not a mass migration away from traditional care, and it is not a sudden disruption of the healthcare system. Growth has been steady and measured, with most membership-based practices continuing to operate alongside insurance-reimbursed medicine rather than replacing it.
What these models have done is bring greater visibility to long-standing workforce pressures. Concierge medicine isn’t creating the physician shortage — it’s drawing attention to sustainability challenges that have been building for years, including administrative burden, panel size demands, and physician retention concerns.
In that sense, membership-based care functions less as a disruption and more as a signal. Even at a small scale, it is influencing broader conversations about access, continuity, and how care can be structured in a way that is sustainable for both physicians and patients. The goal isn’t replacement — it’s thoughtful evolution in how care is delivered.”
— Editor-in-Chief, Concierge Medicine Today, February 2026
The numbers
Q: How common? HOW MANY?
“Concierge medicine may be small in size, but it’s big on purpose. While industry sources note year after year that fewer than 2% of all licensed U.S. doctors practice in some version of subscription-based healthcare delivery model—(that’s about 8,000 to 12,000 practices in the U.S.— at least a quarter of those are now specialists. We’ve also observed incremental growth in adoption and entry into these models and it’s been steady at what we hear is about 4–7% a year — some would say higher but we like to stay realistic, not evangelistic. So while concierge medicine is still a small percentage of the 1.1 million U.S. physicians, it’s quickly becoming the new reference point—the model others are measured against.”
— Editor-in-Chief, Concierge Medicine Today
Q: Math Check?
KFF (as of Sept. 2025):
1,105,148 professionally active physicians in the U.S.
(Source: Sept 2025, KFF State Health Policy Data)2% of that total = ~22,100 physicians.
(As noted above) Concierge Medicine Today notes 8,000–12,000 concierge practices.
If each practice averages 1.2 to 1.5 physicians, that translates to roughly 9,600–18,000 concierge physicians, which is well within the “fewer than 2%” range (≈0.9%–1.6% of all U.S. doctors).
So in summary and mathematically speaker, yes — the above statement(s) we believe are mathematically sound and aligns with KFF’s national Professionally Active Physicians and active state licensed physicians from Redi-Data, Inc, September 2025 and our industry sources perpesctive(s).
In short: Practices ≠ Physicians — and we (CMT) intentionally stay on the conservative side to keep our reporting realistic, not evangelistic — and aim to provide credible estimates.
FOR DOCTORS
Q: Which specialties fit, and why?
“The specialties that fit best aren’t defined by procedures, but by relationships. Anywhere patients need time, clarity, and ongoing management—cardiology, women’s health, pediatrics, oncology—concierge medicine works. The specialties entering concierge medicine now represent a good percentage of the practices out there today — it's hard to say exactly how many because this is a business model but we're seeing more and more specialties enter this space especially within the past decade and that's encouraging for patients and for Doctors and other healthcare practitioners.”
— Editor-in-Chief, Concierge Medicine Today
Q: Prep time and first steps?
“The average runway I'd estimate is 12–18 months. The first steps aren’t about contracts or spreadsheets—they’re about finding clarity: know your why, talk with your family, surround yourself with a trusted business advisory and consulting team, and learn from a few respected colleagues who’ve made the switch but have humility and are not evangelistic about any particular model of practice. We often encourage Doctors to please do their homework, write down all of their detailed questions and go find the answers with the experts who can put your mind at rest. We often repeat something we read a couple of years ago in a business book that practitoners considering this space find encouraging: ''This learning curve and transitional process won't be easy, but you didn't sign up for easy, you signed up for worthwhile.'”
— Editor-in-Chief, Concierge Medicine Today
Q: Common questions?
“The three biggest questions physicians ask us are: Can this work for me? How do I tell my patients? What happens to my workload? Underneath each one is a deeper question: Am I being the best doctor I can be for my patients? We then usually encourage them by saying 'It's no longer about being the best Doctor, Specialist, Nurse, Practice Administrator, etc., in the world anymore, it's about being the best Doctor for the world, for your patients and for your local community.'”
— Editor-in-Chief, Concierge Medicine Today
Q: Ideal stages?
“We’ve seen concierge medicine succeed in every career stage—early-career doctors building a foundation is usually the toughest but it has worked for some, mid-career physicians who want to reclaim balance and go deeper into specific conditions with their patients, and late-career doctors choosing to finish well, find a sustainable pace and yet still want to dive deeper into healthcare's more complex questions with their patients. One concierge medicine physician said to me years ago, 'I still work long hours and into the night, I just use my time differently now and I'm a lot happier ... and so are my patients, team and family members.”
— Editor-in-Chief, Concierge Medicine Today
FOR PATIENTs
Q: What makes it different?
“What separates this space isn’t the business model — it’s the mission. It’s the decision to remove unnecessary friction FOR patients and to design systems that make consistency, service, and trust repeatable. Healthcare has always required clinical skill, but from the patient’s perspective, excellence now means dignity, attention, access, and clear communication. Those aren’t luxuries anymore — they’re baseline expectations. That’s why concierge medicine is becoming a reference point. Not because it’s exclusive, but because it’s intentional. Smaller patient panels — hundreds instead of thousands — create room for relationships instead of transactions. And when a model consistently produces better experiences for both patients and physicians, that’s not a trend. That’s a structural shift in how care is being delivered.”
— Editor-in-Chief, Concierge Medicine Today
Q: Relationship impact?
“Fewer patients doesn’t mean less care; it means more intentional care, longer careers, and patients who finally feel seen. Over the years, when we’ve asked experienced concierge physicians what’s changed for them, they don’t talk about revenue or time off — they talk about joy. These doctors are rediscovering why they started, again. And as one concierge medicine physician reminded us just last month at our industry conference, ‘When the doctor’s fulfilled, the patient benefits too. You can’t fake that kind of energy in an exam room.’ These models are raising the bar for satisfaction on both sides of the room — doctors are staying in practice longer, and patients are reminded what it feels like to be genuinely cared for.”
— Editor-in-Chief, Concierge Medicine Today