Dr. Jordan Shlain, founder of Private Medical.
Credit: Jordan Shlain
A version of this article first appeared in CNBC's Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide for the affluent investor and consumer. To register to receive future editions straight to your inbox.
When people ask Dr. Jordan Shlain to describe his medical practice, he simply says, “It's a family office for your health.”
“Family offices generally aim to preserve wealth,” he says. “Our goal is to preserve your health. After the age of 24, your health is a depreciating asset. That is why we strive to reduce the slope of the curve for as long as possible.”
As depressing as that sounds for patients, Shlain's strategy is paying off as a business model. His company, Private Medical, is at the forefront of a new kind of healthcare for the ultra-wealthy that has taken concierge medicine to a whole new level. Rather than simply offering on-call doctors and faster visits, Private Medical has pioneered a highly personalized, all-in-one service that is more akin to the most sophisticated investment family offices.
Like family offices, Private Medical has an in-house team that manages a family's entire healthcare portfolio – from fitness and diet monitoring to longevity research, surgeries and medical emergencies. It now serves more than 1,000 wealthy families, with offices in California – San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Santa Monica and Beverly Hills – New York and Miami, with more offices on the way.
Private Medical's team of 135 doctors, nurses, clinical staff, pharmacists and medical support professionals provide a 24/7 on-call service, including home and office visits when required. Private Medical does not advertise and makes the majority of its revenue from referrals. It prefers to call patients “members.”
Shlain declined to provide details on pricing, but Private Medical customers say it charges $40,000 per year for each adult patient and $25,000 per patient under 18. Annual fees cover the cost of in-office visits, tests and procedures, but not hospitalization.
The rise of family office-style medical practices – some of which charge as much as $60,000 per year for membership – reflects the rise in wealth among families worth $100 million or more and the growing demand for hyper-personalized, data-driven healthcare from an aging class of billionaires and millionaires.
According to Precedence Research, the market for concierge services and personalized medical services for the wealthy is expected to grow more than 50% to nearly $11 billion annually by 2032.
Shlain says insurance companies, overburdened doctors and high prices have turned the health care system into what he calls a “sick care system.” Private Medical, for those who can afford it, strives to be proactive, conducting frequent tests and diagnostics on patients, constantly updating them with new research and science, and obtaining detailed information about the lifestyle, habits, family life and a patient's work life, Shlain said.
Shlain, whose father was a laparoscopic surgeon and whose mother had a Ph.D. in psychology, began making house calls for the Mandarin Oriental hotel in San Francisco. He took a “crash course” in high-end hospitality from top hotel concierges and realized that healthcare should be more of a five-star hotel service than an impersonal system of long wait times and error-filled diagnoses.
“I will know everything about you to help you make the best decisions in your life,” he said. “I am 70% doctor, 15% psychologist, 10% rabbi and 1% friend.”
It's often Private Medical's job to protect its patients from the broader medical system, Shlain said. One of his patients, a 38-year-old entrepreneur and major donor to a major hospital, was admitted because of an intestinal obstruction. The hospital's CEO and chief of surgery rushed to perform the operation. Shlain pushed back and recommended waiting a day or two. The patient recovered independently while in the hospital “and walked out without surgery,” Shlain said.
Shlain also makes personalized medical kits that patients can take with them on trips or to work. When a patient scratched his cornea playing beach volleyball in the Bahamas, the patient was able to treat his eye with a prescription in his medical kit instead of searching for a hospital on one of the nearby islands.
Like most services for the ultra-wealthy, access is Private Medical's main benefit. Shlain has spent more than two decades building relationships with more than 4,000 specialists in various medical and scientific fields to connect patients with the right person for their specific needs.
With roots in Silicon Valley and many technology clients, Private Medical is also connected to biotech startups conducting groundbreaking research and exploring new treatments. Shlain said Private Medical conducts due diligence on four or five new companies every month to keep up with rapidly changing science and research.
When a patient was diagnosed with major depression, Shlain worked with a new “precision psychiatric” group at Stanford that takes an MRI of the brain and uses connectomes (a map of the brain's neural connections) to determine which medication is causing it. best was for the treatment. .
“He got the right medication and now he's better,” Shlain said.
Private Medical also prides itself on its technology, developed in collaboration with some of Silicon Valley's top CEOs and entrepreneurs. The platform helps both doctors and patients easily access data and manage appointments and workflows.
Two big areas for his wealthy patients are longevity and sleep. When it comes to longevity, Shlain says there is no magic bullet, diet or medication to turn back time, even for billionaires. The real goal, he said, is to “enable you to remain with your physical and mental faculties intact for as long as possible, with as few high-quality interactions with the health care system as possible.”
“Your good result is our income,” he said.
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