Laziness (and being part of some elite group) on the part of the
patient, not the doctor.  The photo accompanying the article had
a doctor making an office call and checking the vitals of a guy
sitting in his office at his desk.  In other words, too lazy to
go into the doctor - everyone wants everything delivered to their
doors these days.

The way the docs are presenting it here in IL is sort of like
yours.  "Would you pay ($1,500 - 2,400) per year to your doctor,
above and beyond insurance, to have your doctor available to you
24/7 and to personally take responsibility for all of your
medical records to be more aware of all your medical needs?"

I thought having records from my specialists sent to my internist
kind of took care of that, and as you say - if something comes up
after hours, I'll either speak to the doctor on call, head to the
ER, or call an ambulance.  What benefit am I getting here?

The article, however, makes it sound more complex, with anywhere
from 8 hours of testing to three days of testing each year.  They
don't make mention of insurance, so I'm thinking insurance isn't
part of the picture.  I don't know how insurance could be
dropped, though.

I just looked at the article again and at Pinnacle, at least,
"Members can get fast-track appointments with overbooked
specialists, too."   The express lane for the rich, and don't
think the fear of a pandemic or some other catastrophe that's
bound to take place, for which we are ill prepared, isn't playing
a part in people doing this.

The funny thing about this is, that doctors are already so
overworked in their offices, that the trend is adding
"hospitalists", thus cutting out their need to go into the
hospital, which takes time away from the office (or their
family).  If even a small percentage of doctors go this route
with concierge service, they'll be reducing their patient base
which will further tax the rest of the doctors.  I guess that's
when we'll see Physician Assistants used more.  Unfortunately, we
could find ourselves in a situation where doctors can pull away
from managed care and charge whatever they like (some docs are
also doing this here - accepting no insurance and their rates are
really high), as they find themselves free agents who will
dictate to the hospital and patient what the rates will be for
various procedures.  Kind of like Catholic priests do now, due to
the shortage of priests.  (I'm not being facetious, I'm Catholic
and priests interviewing at parishes want to know everything from
what kind of meals the cook provides, to what benefits they can
expect with regard to country club and health club memberships
donated by parishioners, etc.)

The problem is that if you are paying that premium the doc is likely to be
less willing to order the generic rather than expensive new brand name drugs
or to not order tests that really are not needed. I'll bet that "expanded"
physical includes plenty of testing that is not indicated but will be billed
to the insurer. Really, it does not take all that long to do all the
physical examination and order all the tests that are indicated so these
expanded exams almost have to be including things that aren't.

Consumer Reports just had an article on shortcuts docs often take during
complete physicals advising people to make sure the docs do them. It
totalled something like 4 physical exam items that probably would make less
than 3 minutes difference in the length of the exam.

Pinnacle Care International in Baltimore.  They have three
membership levels - silver, gold and platinum.  Silver costs
$5,000 per year per member and requires a $10,000 initial fee.
Platinum costs $25,000 per year per member and requires a $30,000
initial fee.  Gold lies somewhere in between those two.  They
have contractual relationships with  Johns Hopkins (not John
Hodgkins...lol),  University of Chicago Hospitals,
Harvard,Cleveland Clinic, Emory, Cedars-Sinai and Emory.  They
have informal agreements with MD Anderson Cancer Center,
Columbia-Pres in NY, Mayo Clinic, National Cancer Institute (also
in MD) and the NIH.  And the NIH!!!!  Anyone else have a problem
with this?

Some corporations are buying these memberships as perks for their
upper level executives, and 20% of the members are outside the
U.S.

Yes, you may want to rethink your new job, after all.....