Luxury Primary Care — Market Innovation or Threat to Access?

Abstract

Primary care practitioners in several states have recently decided to restructure their practices in a way that enables them to see a much smaller number of patients and to spend more time with the ones they do see. Patients enrolled in these practices, referred to as “luxury primary care,” pay an annual fee to the practice. In return for this annual fee, they can expect certain amenities that are not currently part of primary care, such as access to their physicians 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, using cell phones or prompt paging devices.1 When they see their . . .