The Short Answer: It Depends on the Practice
If you have searched for concierge medicine pricing, you have probably noticed that very few practices publish a number — and the numbers you do find online contradict each other. That is not evasiveness. Concierge membership fees genuinely vary widely from practice to practice, even within the same city, because the fee reflects what each practice includes: panel size, visit length, physician availability, and the depth of preventive services built into the membership.
Rather than chasing a "typical" figure that may be years out of date by the time you read it, it is far more useful to understand how concierge pricing works — what the fee buys, what it does not, and what to ask so you can compare practices accurately.
What the Membership Fee Actually Pays For
A concierge membership fee is a recurring payment — usually billed monthly, quarterly, or annually — made directly to the practice. It is not insurance, and it does not replace insurance. What it funds is the practice model itself: a deliberately small patient panel that lets the physician offer things an insurance-only practice usually cannot sustain, such as:
- Longer appointments with time to cover everything, not just the day's chief complaint
- Same-day or next-day scheduling when something comes up
- Direct access to your physician by phone or text, including after hours
- A comprehensive, proactive prevention plan revisited throughout the year, not just at an annual visit
In other words, the fee buys time and access. The medical care itself — office visits for covered services, labs, imaging, referrals — is typically still billed to your insurance or Medicare the same way a traditional practice bills it.
What the Fee Usually Does Not Cover
This is where practices differ most, and where you should read carefully before enrolling. In most concierge models, the membership fee does not cover:
- Insurance premiums, deductibles, or copays — you keep your existing health plan, and its normal cost-sharing still applies to covered services
- Laboratory work, imaging, and specialist visits — these bill through your insurance as usual
- Prescriptions — filled through your pharmacy benefit as before
- Hospital care — covered by your health insurance or Medicare, not the membership
Some practices bundle certain screenings or an executive-style annual physical into the fee; others do not. Never assume — ask for the inclusion list in writing.
Why Practices Quote Pricing by Phone
Many concierge practices — including Zimmer Medical Group — discuss membership pricing by phone rather than posting it online. There are two honest reasons for that. First, fees change over time, and a stale number on a website misleads more people than it helps. Second, membership availability matters as much as price: because the model depends on a limited panel, a practice may have a waitlist, and the conversation about joining is really a conversation about fit, timing, and what you need from your care.
When you call, a good practice will tell you the current fee plainly, explain exactly what it includes, and never pressure you to decide on the spot.
How Concierge Costs Compare to Traditional Primary Care
With traditional, insurance-based primary care, your only costs are your normal insurance cost-sharing — there is no membership fee. The trade-off is structural: larger patient panels, shorter visits, and less direct access to the physician between appointments. Our guide to concierge vs. traditional primary care walks through that comparison in detail.
It is also worth knowing that concierge medicine is not the only membership model. Direct primary care (DPC) practices charge a membership fee but typically do not bill insurance at all — a meaningfully different structure with different cost implications.
If You Have Medicare
Medicare will not pay the concierge membership fee itself — that is always out of pocket. But according to Medicare.gov, Medicare continues to cover medically necessary services delivered by a participating physician, even within a concierge practice. Most concierge members in the St. Petersburg area keep their Medicare coverage and use it exactly as before for labs, imaging, specialists, and hospital care.
Questions to Ask Before You Join Any Concierge Practice
Price-shopping concierge medicine is really inclusion-shopping. Ask every practice you consider:
- What is the current membership fee, and how often is it billed?
- Exactly which services are included in the fee, and which still bill my insurance?
- Do you participate in Medicare and my insurance network for covered services?
- How large is the patient panel, and is there a waitlist?
- What does after-hours access actually look like — who answers, and how fast?
- Is there a trial period, and what is the cancellation policy?
A practice that answers these directly, in writing, is telling you something about how it will treat you as a patient.
How to Compare Two Concierge Practices Fairly
Once you have the fee and the inclusion list from each practice you are considering, the comparison is not arithmetic. Two memberships described in nearly identical language can deliver very different care, and the differences show up in three places.
Compare the Inclusion List, Not the Description
Every practice says it offers longer visits and better access. Ask what that means in writing: how many minutes a routine visit is scheduled for, how many patients the physician carries, and what happens to your appointment when the schedule runs behind. Ask specifically whether an annual comprehensive evaluation is part of the membership or billed separately, and if it is included, what it consists of. A practice that can hand you a written list has thought the model through.
Ask How the Practice Handles the Care You Actually Use
The value of a membership tracks what you need from it. If you are managing type 2 diabetes, hypertension, or congestive heart failure, ask who adjusts medications between visits, how quickly lab results are reviewed and explained, and how the practice communicates with your cardiologist or endocrinologist. If you are largely well, ask instead about screening intervals and how prevention is tracked year to year. Either way, the covered medical care itself is still billed through your plan under the ordinary rules, including the national fee schedule the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services publishes for Medicare services.
Read the Enrollment Terms Before You Sign
Membership agreements differ on the points that matter later: the billing cycle, the notice period for cancellation, whether any portion is refundable, whether the fee is locked for a term, and what happens if you move or spend half the year elsewhere. If you are on Medicare, confirm the practice participates in Medicare and that your deductible and coinsurance work exactly as Medicare.gov describes. Our page on concierge medicine explains how our own model is structured, and preventive versus diagnostic visit billing covers the coding question that generates most of the confusion.
The Bottom Line
Concierge medicine costs a recurring membership fee on top of — not instead of — your existing insurance or Medicare. The fee varies widely between practices because what it includes varies widely, so the meaningful comparison is not the sticker price but what the membership actually buys: physician time, direct access, and a prevention-first relationship. Get the current fee and the inclusion list from any practice you are considering, and weigh it against how often you would genuinely use that level of access.
Curious about membership at Zimmer Medical Group? Call our downtown St. Petersburg office at (727) 820-7800 for current pricing and availability, or request an appointment to talk through whether the concierge model fits your needs.
