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Comment by c_o_n_v_e_x | Hacker News Reader

My parents (both in late 60s) live in the US and I'm alarmed by what they tell me. Their old GP retired and sold his clinic to a "concierge" system/network (I don't know the terminology, been overseas for over 10 years so I'm not familiar with any of this.) You have to pay upfront a few thousand per year to get into the system.

The US system sounds totally broken compared to my experiences within the Singapore and Australian health care systems.

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> Their old GP retired and sold his clinic to a "concierge" system/network

Concierge medicine is a luxury service where you pay an annual out of pocket membership fee to have a doctor always on call, including home visits. Its popular among the very wealthy, but not affordable for most people.

I've read comments that concierge medicine is cost effective if you require frequent visits, as with many older patients. Would like to know if this is true.

Concierge medicine fees are thousand per year in addition to insurance, deductibles, and copays, not in lieu of those expenses.

The doctors I know of who practice it have very wealthy clientele for whom convenience and access is the important factor, not the cost.

My in-laws, who are not wealthy, absolutely love the concierge set-up they have with their doctor. They do utilize it often, which makes it worth it.

We're falling into a trap of using subjective definitions the term "wealthy".

$2000-$3000/person/year [1] on top of regular insurance is a more than most people can afford, especially in a country where a large percentage of the population has little in terms of savings [2], and 60% live paycheck-to-paycheck [3].

But you certainly don't have to be a billionaire or even a deca-millionaire to afford it. You just need to be in the higher percentiles of your local income/wealth distribution.

1. https://www.partnermd.com/blog/concierge-medicine-costs-fact...

2. https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/emergency-savings-r...

3. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/27/60percent-of-americans-are-s...

They should just find a new office. If theirs retired anyway, they’re getting a new doctor. They’d be on Medicare and the participation rate for doctors with Medicare is in the high 90s.

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