Denver Business Journal • 5.13.24
"Having the structure has just rekindled my love of medicine," one physician said.
A concierge doctor's office structured to meet the needs of the nation's highest profile patients now has an office in Cherry Creek.
For a retainer of about $2,000 per month, Colorado's top earners can unlock access toMD², a company that bills itself as the founder of concierge medicine starting in 1996.
The Bellevue, Washington-based company opened a Denver office about six months ago, marking the 26th location in its network across major U.S. cities.
Comprised of just two doctors and three nurses, the office is designed for busy, privacy-forward families who travel frequently and spend much of their time in a second home. That means features like on-site medical imaging, home visits and travel packs that allow the doctors to give medical administration instructions over the phone.
Like all of its locations, the MD² Cherry Creek office limits its capacity to 50 families.That tenet is the company's core differentiator from other concierge medical offices, thetwo physicians at that office told the Denver Business Journal.
MD²'s Denver doctors — Lisa Corbin and Duane Pearson — were hand-picked to lead thecompany's entrance to its newest market. Both have long and impressive resumes thatinclude local work and leadership with health systems HealthOne and UCHealth, as wellas accolades for integrative and innovative medical research, practice and teaching.
That is also by design. According to its website, the MD² model emphasizes access to some of the "world’s foremost specialists, researchers, and medical institutions." If a patient is abroad, an MD² physician should be able to leverage connections with a provider in that location to ensure the patient is seen. In the case of a more particular medical issue, that network also comes into play.
The model is a departure from the work that Corbin and Pearson were used to as physicians. Prior to teaching, Pearson had spent years working in a rheumatology program for a county medical system in California, dedicating much of his energy to delivery systems for the underserved. Corbin similarly spent years practicing as an attending internal medicine physician.
"They [MD²] reached out to me, and I'm like, 'Not interested, not interested,'" Corbin said of her first contact with the company. "And then the more I heard about their model, the more interested I became."
While at first, they feared a snobbish atmosphere, Corbin and Pearson said this model of concierge medicine was a major opportunity to find even more fulfillment in their careers.
They say the company and its doctors are far from snobbish and that the model allows them to do what they have always valued most in their profession: develop meaningful relationships with their patients, take the time to learn about new issues and know that they will have the time and resources to address those issues.
"Having the space, having the structure has just rekindled my love of medicine," Pearsons said. "I absolutely am excited to come to work every day. And I love my old job. This is just a little bit more deep."
Time is everything
Pearson and Corbin say that the secret to their fulfillment—and to MD²'s success—is the time they are allotted to dedicate to each patient.
The limit on 50 families (patients can add a significant other for about $1,000 more per month and a non-pediatric-age child for another $300) means that both doctors are truly paid on a retainer basis. If and when a patient calls, they are usually available to provide immediate care.
"'Is fun to be a geek again," Corbin said.
More than that, she and Pearson say that working in a system that can implement value-based care without cost limitations removes the frustrations of what most practitioners experience in alth traditional heacare setting.
"There's massive waste in our health care system," Pearson said. "A lot of that comes from poor systems of communication, as well as redundancy. And redundancy comes from either failed communication of what already exists in terms of the data or the thinking."
In this practice, though, doctors have the time and the ability to reach out to specialists and communicate in what Pearson refers to as the normal medicine of the past.
"We're doing the things that doctors should be able to do, which is a ton of reading, a ton of emails, and phone calls, and to be able to then circle back around with the patient on their time," Pearson said.
He and Corbin said they expect the Cherry Creek office will reach its 50-family capacity by mid-summer. Several of their patients live in the mountains or Western slope and use mostly phone, text and video for their medical needs.
Once the office is full, the practice will not expand with more doctors. Rather, MD² starts a wait list and plans a second clinic. In that way, they preserve what Pearson and Corbinsay is the most precious and secret resource of time.
MD² has grown using the same model to two offices in multiple cities and three offices in New York and Seattle.
Comprehensive care
While many of the patients who arrive at MD² are interested in its discreet nature and connected network of doctors, Pearson said most are also very invested and engaged in their health.
He and Corbin said they are reluctant to use buzzword terms like "longevity medicine" or"executive health programmer," which are niche and often alternative medicine areas that are also growing more popular among the nation's elite.
"I think we lean in that direction, but we don't like the label," Corbin said. "We're not gimmicky. This is a relationship from life and how can we make the most out of life."
She and Pearson said MD² is still primary medicine, but with a tailored plan for preventing primary disease, meeting personal wellness needs and deep experience managing chronic disease.
Both say they also rest assured that if their patients are in another large U.S. city, they will likely have immediate and high-quality care access at a different MD² clinic.
Pearson recalls being able to check in on a patient at home before the patient left for travel—something he could do as a precaution that gave both him and the patient peace of mind.
"Those things are unheard of in my previous life," he said. "It's so fulfilling now to meet patients where they are when they need us."