Your patients aren't one audience. They're four different people looking for four very different things.
Most subscription-based practice marketing defaults to the same list: same-day appointments, longer visits, more availability, simpler billing. That message only lands with some of your patients. Not all of them. The CMT Patient Study is the first patient psychographic model built specifically for subscription-based, membership, and concierge medicine, developed over more than a decade, 2013 to 2024, from patients who actually searched for a doctor like yours. So you can tell, at a glance, which one is sitting across from you.
The CMT Patient Study is a proprietary patient psychographic model developed and owned by Concierge Medicine Today, LLC, built from patient survey data collected 2013–2024. © 2007–2026 Concierge Medicine Today, LLC. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction or commercial use without written permission is prohibited.
The CMT Patient Study
CMT's proprietary patient psychographic segmentation model for subscription-based, membership, and concierge medicine, built from over a decade of survey data.
Two questions actually separate concierge-seekers from each other: how they already feel about their current doctor, and whether they want a new doctor to still work with insurance and Medicare, or want out of that system entirely. Almost everyone cares a lot about hospitality and service, so that turned out not to be a dividing line at all.
Percentages are each group's share of the 561 patients who answered all four rating questions. Scores are averages on a 1 to 5 scale. Tap any group to open its full profile.
Ten years of proof, not a guess
This isn't a pattern from one small survey wave. We checked it against 1,149 patients spanning the entire archive, 416 from the early years and 733 from the recent years, and asked the same direct question both times: what matters most to you?
picked finding a doctor they like and trust as their top reason for searching
picked the same answer, virtually unchanged six years later
For eleven straight years, roughly three out of every four patients who came looking for a concierge doctor were looking for a relationship first, not a perk.
Read plainly: this was never a trend that might fade. A separate, open-ended question tells the same story even more sharply: patients describing their search in their own words used relationship and trust language nearly three times as often in the recent years as in the early ones. Different question, same conclusion.
Inside each segment
Each card breaks a segment down the same simple way: what's actually going wrong for them, how it feels from where they're sitting, what they believe is fair, one plain sentence that says who this is for, and what concierge care genuinely offers them.
Say it in one line: the practice that lets a patient who already does everything right go further, faster, without switching who they trust.
Say it in one line: the upgrade path for the doctor a patient already trusts, without asking them to give up their coverage to get it.
Say it in one line: the clean break from a doctor and a system that both stopped working, in one move instead of two.
Say it in one line: a better doctor who still works with the coverage a patient already depends on.
What holds true across all four
These patterns show up no matter which group a patient falls into, drawn from bigger groups of patients who answered these particular questions.
What to do with this
Here's what to actually do next, in order.
Read your own leads against the compass
Before writing new marketing copy, tag your last 20 patient inquiries by how they feel about their current doctor and whether insurance matters to them. You'll likely find one or two of these groups dominate your actual market, not all four evenly.
Speak to the real problem, not the amenity list
A Coverage Keeper and a Fresh-Starter are both concierge prospects, and neither responds to the same headline. One needs reassurance about continuity. The other needs permission to start over.
Track results by group, not just by lead
Note which group each new patient falls into at intake. Over a year, that becomes your own proof of whether this model holds up, and CMT's basis for refining it.
- This model comes only from Concierge Medicine Today's own patient survey, answers submitted between January 2013 and December 2024. We didn't use, copy, or reference any other company's segmentation model to build it.
- Everyone in this data was actively searching for a concierge doctor through CMT. They chose to answer, we didn't randomly select them, so this reflects CMT's own audience rather than a scientific cross-section of the public. Treat the findings as a strong signal from real patients, not a nationally representative statistic.
- The four-group compass is built from 561 patients who answered all four rating questions (trust in their current doctor, satisfaction with their current doctor, how much hospitality matters, how much insurance or Medicare compatibility matters). Those questions were added in 2018, so this group reflects 2018 to 2024 only. The other numbers on this page come from larger, different groups of patients, as noted next to each one, and older answers may reflect a healthcare landscape that's changed since they were given.
- The ten-year comparison is based on a direct multiple-choice question ("what matters most to you?") answered by 1,149 patients across the full archive, 416 from 2013–2018 and 733 from 2019–2024. The supporting open-ended comparison comes from grouping similar free-text answers by common words and phrases, not a formal, independently checked classification, and should be read as a softer, secondary signal that points the same direction.
- We did not include direct primary care (DPC) patient data in this model, and we haven't mixed it in. Any DPC findings CMT publishes will be a separate, clearly labeled analysis.
- This is a working, early-stage model meant to guide marketing and editorial decisions. It hasn't been reviewed by outside researchers, and it isn't a clinical, legal, or financial tool. The patterns here are things we noticed happening together, not proof that one thing causes another.
- Nothing on this page is medical, legal, or financial advice. Talk to a qualified professional before using any of this in patient-facing materials, especially anything touching insurance or Medicare.
- We plan to test and refine this model with a new, purpose-built survey. The numbers here reflect what we know today and may change.
- The CMT Patient Study name, the four-segment model, and the underlying analysis are proprietary to Concierge Medicine Today, LLC. © 2007–2026 Concierge Medicine Today, LLC. All rights reserved.
Know what you're for. Then say it to the right patient.
Concierge Medicine Today · independent trade publication since 2007
The CMT Patient Study · © 2007–2026 Concierge Medicine Today, LLC. All rights reserved.