Membership medicine sits at the intersection of entrepreneurship and healthcare excellence. At Private Physicians Alliance, we believe this intersection holds the cure for many systemic problems plaguing today’s healthcare setting. That’s why we’ve dedicated ourselves to supporting entrepreneurial physicians who’ve built thriving membership medicine practices from the ground up.
We’re proud of our network of entrepreneurial physicians. Their clinical mastery, business acumen, exceptional patient service standards, and commitment to continuous learning place them among the most successful practitioners in both healthcare and business today.
When these exceptional physicians gather in one room, their eyes light up as they realize they’ve found their tribe: peers who understand both the art of medicine and the science of building sustainable practices.
The Foundation: Physicians Leading Physicians
Private Physicians Alliance’s foundation was established in 2017 when a group of visionary physicians formed our Physician Advisory Council (PAC). This wasn’t another organization created by consultants or administrators. It was built by physicians, for physicians.
Dr. Jordan Shlain, Founder of Private Medical and current PAC member, captures our mission perfectly:
“Our council includes exceptional physicians who embody integrity, service, quality, and responsiveness. We’re at a critical juncture in medicine. Entrepreneurial concierge physicians face competition from minute clinics, tech-driven health services, and well-funded corporate players. As Private Physicians Alliance grows, our collective strength becomes our greatest asset against these market forces.
“I believe in the ability of physician-led networks, especially when they’re built by mission-driven practitioners.”
Recognizing the Broken System
For Private Physicians Alliance’s founders, our alliance began with a stark realization: Exceptional medical care and smart business practices could unite to change healthcare quality. We witnessed a broken system and couldn’t ignore what we saw.
The status quo wasn’t just failing; it was harming both physicians and patients. We had a choice: continue accepting “how things have always been” or create meaningful change.
Starting over meant risk. But continuing down the same broken path meant accepting mediocrity. We chose to lead the change, focusing on entrepreneurial practices that weren’t trapped by legacy systems or addicted to failing fee-for-service models that prioritize quantity over quality.
The future of healthcare needed rewriting. We decided to write it ourselves.
The System’s Fatal Flaws
Healthcare’s problems aren’t subtle. They’re systemic failures that every politician promises to fix, yet the issues persist election after election.
These fundamental flaws drove Private Physicians Alliance’s creation:
The Backward Economics of Healthcare Shopping
Healthcare’s biggest problem? Patients can’t shop intelligently because the system isn’t designed for transparency. It’s designed for consumption without consideration.
Consider if restaurants operated like healthcare. You’d sit down, order from a menu with no prices, eat your meal, and leave without paying. Weeks later, your “restaurant insurance” would send a letter explaining what they’ll cover.
Then, you’d receive separate bills from the restaurant, the chef, and the sommelier: all independent contractors billing at different rates. You’d learn your “premium steak” cost $5,000 and the burger was $400, but only after consumption.
This scenario sounds absurd because it is absurd.
We’d never accept this model for restaurants, so why do we tolerate it in healthcare? Instead of demanding change, consumers shrug and say, “That’s just healthcare.” We’ve been conditioned to accept dysfunction.
Insurance’s Identity Crisis
Health insurance suffers from a misunderstanding of what insurance should cover.
If car insurance worked like health insurance, you’d file claims for oil changes, tire rotations, and gas fill-ups. Car insurance doesn’t cover these predictable expenses since insurance exists for unforeseen events: accidents, theft, natural disasters.
Yet healthcare insurance tries to cover both unpredictable emergencies and routine maintenance. This creates the worst of both worlds: expensive premiums for predictable services and complex bureaucracy for actual emergencies.
Private Physicians Alliance members are rewriting this chapter by removing insurance from routine primary care. When membership-based practices handle predictable care directly, insurance can return to its proper role: protecting against catastrophic, unforeseen events.
The Volume Trap
Today’s healthcare model forces quality-focused practices to operate like factories. Hospitals need tremendous volume to remain profitable, creating perverse incentives.
Consider Medicare’s Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program. Rather than eliminating all preventable readmissions, it’s calibrated to reduce just enough to appear effective, while preserving the revenue hospitals depend on from repeat visits.
The math is simple and devastating: Primary care physicians need 3,000+ patients to run profitable traditional practices. This volume requirement guarantees that both physicians and patients suffer.
One physician cannot provide excellent care to 3,000 people. It’s mathematically impossible, yet the system demands this impossible standard for financial survival.
Addressing Common Misconceptions
Misconception #1: “Private Physicians Alliance Only Serves the Wealthy Elite”
Some assume Private Physicians Alliance exclusively serves physicians charging premium fees to ultra-wealthy patients. This misunderstanding stems from our reputation for excellence, not our actual membership criteria.
Private Physicians Alliance membership has nothing to do with your fees or your patients’ wealth. Our network includes physicians with modest membership fees and those with premium pricing models.
What unites our members isn’t their fee structure. It’s their entrepreneurial drive to grow, learn, and excel. Everyone in our network is expanding: adding patients, physicians, locations, or services. They’re building bigger footprints and better practices.
We support any physician and practice which deploys the “Three Ps: Personalized, Proactive and Preventative care for thier patients”. We are looking for members who want to continuously improve. “I’m content” isn’t a phrase you’ll hear in our network. We exist to challenge complacency and provide the tools for sustainable growth.
Misconception #2: “Private Physicians Alliance Opposes Direct Primary Care”
Some mistakenly believe Private Physicians Alliance opposes DPC practices. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
We champion DPC practices and want to help them thrive. More than half our members identify as DPC physicians.
The distinction isn’t about the practice model. It’s about mindset. We support entrepreneurial physicians regardless of whether they operate concierge practices that work with insurance or pure DPC models that don’t.
Creating Lasting Change
We’re tremendously proud of Private Physicians Alliance’s growth and trajectory. Most physicians never learn business fundamentals in medical school or residency. Our network exists to share collective wisdom and create a clearer roadmap for current and future entrepreneurial physicians.
We’re changing healthcare to create better experiences for both physicians and patients. We refuse to accept the status quo.
Ready to connect with your tribe of entrepreneurial physicians? Discover if Private Physicians Alliance membership is right for your practice.
