Prepared jointly by Vector Medical Group and Baker Donelson, with commentary from Dana Jacoby, CEO & Founder of Vector Medical Group; Gary W. Herschman, Shareholder and Co-Chair of Baker Donelson’s Health Care Transactions Group; and Timothy C. McHale, Associate in Baker Donelson’s Health Care Transactions Group.

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For most of its 25-year history, the question in membership medicine was whether the model works. Today, physician-owners are asking where their practice fits as the category undergoes substantial growth, investment, and consolidation. That shift is the backdrop for the State of Concierge and Consumer Medicine, 2026 White Paper, prepared jointly by Vector Medical Group and Baker Donelson, with commentary from Dana Jacoby, CEO & Founder of Vector Medical Group; Gary W. Herschman, Shareholder and Co-Chair of Baker Donelson’s Health Care Transactions Group; and Timothy C. McHale, Associate in Baker Donelson’s Health Care Transactions Group.

The paper explains why membership-based primary care, direct primary care (DPC), and adjacent consumer-health businesses — such as longevity clinics, biomarker testing, hormone optimization, and medical weight management — are drawing sustained attention from private equity firms, family offices, insurers, and consumer-health strategics.

For physician-owners, the paper is a practical guide to protecting and building value, whether or not they intend to transact.

• Access the (PDF) full White Paper now

Core Themes and Findings

Four Forces Pulling Capital Into the Category

• Primary care economics. Traditional practices with panels of 2,000 or more, rising documentation burden, and lagging reimbursement are hard to sustain. Membership restores time per patient (and with it, quality of care) and creates predictable income.
• Consumer demand. Patients will pay out of pocket for timely access and prevention, and younger consumers increasingly arrive with wearable and biomarker data they want a physician to interpret.
• Recurring, cash-pay revenue. Prepaid, historically low-churn memberships offer revenue visibility that few other practice models match, which the paper calls the most cited reason investors find the category attractive.
• Room to consolidate. A handful of national brands sit above many regional groups and single-site practices, leaving real whitespace for platform formation.

The Asset Is a Renewing Relationship

The paper’s central message is that investor platforms are not buying a book of patients. They are buying a renewing relationship, the brand and care model that sustain it, and the infrastructure to expand. In the authors’ words, “retention, panel discipline, and physician alignment are the economics, and everything else is downstream.”

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Market Segmentation at a Glance

The premium tier is where most sponsor-backed platform formation is concentrated and where renewal economics are strongest. Ultra-premium growth is constrained by physician recruitment rather than demand, while longevity carries the highest marketing intensity and the least settled regulatory terrain.

*Note: The Standard Concierge/DPC tier spans two distinct models. Direct primary care practices generally do not bill insurance and typically carry larger panels, while standard (hybrid) concierge practices charge a membership fee and continue to bill insurance for covered service.

Strategies for Physician-Owners

Build Value Into the Membership Model

• Convert access into recurring revenue. A well-priced annual prepaid membership improves predictability, reduces collection risk, and changes how the practice is valued relative to fee-for-service. Plan the conversion carefully. Only part of the existing panel will convert, so model conversion yield, ramp time, and cost per converted member before committing. Practices should also handle patient notice and the transition of non-members thoughtfully, and make deliberate decisions about Medicare and payor participation status, particularly in hybrid programs.
• Extend the relationship. Diagnostics, hormone optimization, weight management, wellness, and aesthetics raise revenue per member without raising panel size. Launch them as structured programs, not ad hoc menu items.
• Protect panel discipline. Small panels are the product. Letting panels drift upward erodes the differentiation members pay for, and it shows up at the next renewal.
• Outlive the founder. Brand, care model, specialist network, technology, and central operations are transferable; personal reputation alone is not.

Price and Retain Deliberately

The paper urges owners to measure renewal by cohort rather than in aggregate and to apply deliberate price escalation backed by a member experience that justifies it. It also flags a payment-rail tailwind: beginning in 2026, patients may pay qualifying DPC fees with HSA dollars, and individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements (ICHRAs) are growing. The HSA rule is narrow, though: it covers only fixed fees of up to $150 a month ($300 for families) that are the physician’s sole compensation, so hybrid concierge practices that bill insurance, and most premium-tier fees, will not qualify.

• Access the (PDF) full White Paper now

Treat Compliance as a Valuation Input

This content and white paper will be discussed and presented by it’s contributing authors in Atlanta, GA at the 2026 Concierge Medicine Forum, October 15-17, 2026.

In the authors’ words, “cash-pay does not mean unregulated.” The issues most likely to surface in diligence include:

• membership fee design under state insurance and DPC statutes;
• Medicare and payor overlay rules on charging for covered services;
• corporate practice of medicine and MSO structures, including management fee arrangements, a growing number of state notice, review, or approval requirements for physician practice transactions, and new limits on MSO control in some states (Oregon’s 2025 law being the most restrictive);
• anti-kickback and fee-splitting rules;
• telehealth and controlled-substance prescribing, where the current federal telemedicine flexibilities are set to expire on December 31, 2026, and a permanent DEA special registration rule is pending;
• compounded therapies, where shortage-era latitude for compounded GLP-1 and other metabolic drugs has narrowed substantially and the compounding pathway for peptides continues to shift;
• laboratory oversight for consumer diagnostics; and
• marketing claims and consumer health data privacy.

Addressing these issues proactively costs far less than addressing them in a government or payor investigation, or after a letter of intent is signed, when they become price reductions, escrows, or deal-breakers.

Choose a Path Intentionally

Owners have several viable paths:

• remain independent,
• convert or expand the membership model,
• affiliate with a national brand,
• join or build a regional group,
• partner with an investor-backed platform,
• sell to a corporate-owned concierge company,
• join a franchise, or
• expand into longevity as a governed service line.

The paper cautions against choosing on first-year conversion or deal economics alone. Affiliation typically reduces margin permanently in exchange for infrastructure, and platform deals often involve governance concessions and rollover equity whose value depends on the sponsor’s exit. Non-compete, earnout, and post-closing compensation terms deserve as much attention as the headline price. Successful groups decide in advance which decisions (pricing, panel size, service mix, hiring) they will and will not give up, and negotiate those points before the economics are settled.

• Access the (PDF) full White Paper now

Market Trends and Investment Dynamics

The paper includes a useful chart broken down into three types of platforms:

1. “Consolidation Platforms”, which are actively acquiring concierge practices;
2. “Corporate/De Novo Growth and Franchise Models” (some of which may be open to acquisitions), and
3. “Management & Conversion Consulting Companies”, which assist primary care practices in converting to concierge models and operating thereafter.

The paper’s platform tracking illustrates the scale of activity, from national conversion-model networks reporting roughly 1,400 physicians and 450,000 members, to high-end family models charging a $30,000 annual base fee with about 50 families per physician.

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Diligence focuses as much on the durability of the membership base as on the financial statements. Capital partners underwrite:

• Retention by cohort in years two, three, and five, and behavior at each price increase
• Conversion yield, ramp time, and cost per converted member
• Physician concentration, retirement horizon, and non-compete posture
• Organic versus acquired growth, separated cleanly
• Fee architecture, pricing power, and ancillary attach rates
• Treatment of prepaid membership fees (deferred revenue) in the purchase price and working capital
• Specialist network and care navigation, often the least documented and most defensible asset
• Compliance posture and scalable infrastructure beyond the founder

Buyers pay for predictability. Valuation ranges vary widely by scale and segment, and the White Paper discusses the key drivers: a membership base with demonstrated renewal behavior is valued differently from a fee-for-service book of similar size, and a multi-physician platform with consistently measured economics is valued differently from a single-physician practice with an exceptional reputation. Practices that can evidence cohort-level retention, disciplined panels, and value that survives a physician’s departure command a different conversation, and a different structure, than those that cannot.

Conclusion: The Time Is Now

The White Paper concludes that concierge medicine, DPC, and longevity are converging into a single consumer-health economy, and that national brands are converting physicians in markets where local groups have not yet defined a position, and that groups without a strategy will be shaped by those forces rather than their own priorities.

• Access the (PDF) full White Paper now

The prescription is clear: honestly assess your membership economics and physician dependence, understand local competitive density, plan realistically for retention, recruitment, and compliance, build a succession roadmap, and engage experienced advisors.

Owners who expect to transact within three years should begin building cohort retention, conversion, and attach-rate data now, whether they ultimately partner, affiliate, or stay independent.

The full White Paper, including the platform chart and practical recommendations for practice owners, is available at https://www.bakerdonelson.com/webfiles/Publications/State-of-Concierge-and-Consumer-Medicine-2026.pdf.

This article summarizes the State of Concierge and Consumer Medicine, 2026 White Paper, which reflects market observations as of September 2026. It is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, or investment advice.