Announcing the 2026 Macbach Concierge Class.
An editorial recognition list. Each year, Macbach publishes the named honorees we believe set the standard in concierge medicine across ten categories, evaluated on a public methodology, with a documented recusal posture for our own clients. This piece names four anchor honorees and previews the methodology. The full Class of 2026 publishes in Q3 2026.
The category needed an honest list.
Concierge medicine grew up. The largest national network crossed 400,000 members. Hospital systems run dedicated concierge programs in nearly every major metro. The ultra-premium tier moved past a quarter-million-dollar annual fee. Grand View Research has the category at $13.23 billion by 2030.
The category still has no honest list. The directories that exist are paid placements dressed up as recognition. Mainstream "best of" coverage is freelancer round-ups citing the same handful of brands. Trade publications report news, not standards. There's no concierge equivalent of U.S. News Best Hospitals, no concierge Castle Connolly. Nobody has written down what good looks like and named the practices doing it.
We've been healthcare-only since 2007. Concierge medicine has been on the book since 2010. We run acquisition, retention, and brand work for concierge practices across fifteen states and four countries. The view we have is operator-side, not press-side, which is the qualification that matters here. What makes a concierge program worth studying isn't the marketing surface. It's what happens after the new member signs.
This is the first run. Four named honorees in four categories where we feel confident enough to publish. Six categories still under editorial review; those names land with the full Class in Q3. Methodology is below. Recusal is below. The author is named.
Five disciplines that make the list defensible.
The list is only worth what its method is worth. Five disciplines hold the editorial program in place.
- Discipline 01Public methodology
- The selection criteria are written into this article. Before the list publishes, not after. The standard you're being measured against is on the page.
- Discipline 02Editorial, not paid
- Honorees don't pay. Nominees don't pay. There is no sponsorship tier and no submission fee. We earn no money the moment a name goes on the list.
- Discipline 03Documented recusal
- Our own concierge clients are out. Named on this page so anyone can verify it. They don't compete for categories they'd otherwise belong in.
- Discipline 04Named editorial author
- I'm the author. Vince Schwellenbach, Macbach Healthcare Solutions, since 2007. Every honoree write-up below has the evidence we used and where it came from.
- Discipline 05Annual cadence
- The list runs once a year. Past honorees don't auto-renew. Each year's list is the read we have of the category that year, not a permanent designation.
Three Macbach clients are recused from the 2026 Class.
Active Macbach concierge clients are not eligible for any category in any year their engagement is active. The list below is named so that any reader can verify the recusal. These are programs we believe in operationally; that is the entire reason we will not honor them.
Active Macbach Architect (fractional CMO) engagement. Recused from all categories.
Active Macbach client. Recused from all categories.
Active Macbach client. Recused from all categories.
Ten categories. Four named today.
The four named honorees are the anchor selections we believe are uncontroversial: programs whose category leadership is documented in public sources and confirmed against the concierge consideration sets we observe across the Macbach concierge book. The six remaining categories are under editorial review; full Class publishes Q3 2026.
- 01Category
Best National Affiliated Network
Roughly 1,200 affiliated primary-care physicians. More than 400,000 members. Every state. MDVIP didn't just enter affiliated concierge medicine; it set the operational template the rest of the category still uses. Two decades on, it's the program our concierge clients hear named most often when they're deciding between models. Category leadership doesn't last that long by accident.
EvidenceFounded 2000. Procter & Gamble exit to Summit Partners (2009), then Goldman Sachs (2014). Physician and member counts published on mdvip.com.
- 02Category
Best Hospital-System Concierge Program (Mid-Atlantic)
PartnerMD has the multi-state physician footprint, the executive-physical infrastructure, and the preventive-medicine depth that hospital-affiliated concierge was built to deliver. What separates it from affiliated-network programs is structural: institutional backing, integrated specialty referral, the kind of clinical scope an independent practice can't manufacture. In the Mid-Atlantic, it's the reference program.
EvidenceFounded 2003. HCA Virginia affiliation. Multi-state footprint published on partnermd.com.
- 03Category
Best Hospital-System Concierge Program (Metro NY)
Mount Sinai is the institutional anchor of one of the densest clinical markets in the country. Their concierge program sits inside that academic medical system with referral pathways into specialty and subspecialty care that affiliated networks structurally cannot match. In a metro where hospital-affiliated concierge competes head-on with ultra-premium private programs, Mount Sinai's is the one with the academic-medicine pedigree behind it.
EvidenceMount Sinai Health System rankings in U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals. Program scope published on mountsinai.org.
- 04Category
Best Ultra-Premium Concierge
Sollis built a category that didn't exist before they launched. 24/7 medical centers in New York, the Hamptons, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Palm Beach: the wealth markets where the price tier they hold has support. Urgent care plus concierge medicine plus a physical center, packaged as a standalone luxury healthcare brand. Nobody else has held the price ceiling like Sollis has.
EvidenceFounded 2016. Multi-city footprint published on sollishealth.com. Member fees covered in Forbes and The Wall Street Journal.
- 05Category
Best Solo Classic Concierge
Selection forthcoming · Q3 2026A single physician with a panel small enough to actually know every patient. The model's original promise. Operational discipline, real clinical depth, the kind of member experience the model was supposed to make possible in the first place. Honoree announced with the full Class of 2026 in Q3.
- 06Category
Best Multi-Physician Concierge Group
Selection forthcoming · Q3 2026Privately owned. Multiple physicians, multiple locations, growing on the same membership economics they started with, not by raising prices, by adding capacity. We see this story rarely; when it works, it's the strongest argument for the concierge model that exists. Honoree announced with the full Class.
- 07Category
Best Concierge-DPC Hybrid
Selection forthcoming · Q3 2026Concierge-tier service at a DPC fee, or DPC mechanics at a concierge fee. The line between the two models is the most active in subscription primary care right now. We're watching for the practice that defines what the hybrid actually is. Honoree announced with the full Class.
- 08Category
Best Operational Discipline
Selection forthcoming · Q3 2026The program (any size, any structure) that knows its numbers cold. Panel size discipline, retention engineering, renewal infrastructure, member events that members actually want to attend, internal reporting that catches problems before they show up in a quarterly meeting. Honoree announced with the full Class.
- 09Category
Best Member Experience
Selection forthcoming · Q3 2026The program where everything outside the visit itself (onboarding, communication, after-hours access, how a family member's care gets coordinated, what happens when a member calls from a hotel in Lisbon at 11 PM) exceeds what the price suggests. Honoree announced with the full Class.
- 10Category
Best Hospital-System Concierge (Other Regions)
Selection forthcoming · Q3 2026A hospital-system concierge program outside the Mid-Atlantic and Metro NY. Strong candidates in New England, the Southeast, the Midwest, the Mountain West, the West Coast. Same criteria as the regional programs above: institutional backing, clinical scope, real specialty integration, the executive-physical infrastructure. Honoree announced with the full Class.
How to be considered for the 2027 Class.
Email insights@macbach.com with the practice name, location, structure (solo, multi-physician, hospital-affiliated, ultra-premium, hybrid), and a paragraph or two on why the program is worth studying. Include URLs to anything publicly documented (the practice website, a press profile, a peer-reviewed publication, a hospital system affiliation page).
There is no submission fee. Submissions do not guarantee inclusion. The editorial team reviews on a rolling basis. Nominations for the 2027 Class close June 30, 2027.
Submissions from a practice's marketing team are welcome. Submissions from members, peer physicians, hospital-system partners, and concierge industry veterans are encouraged. The strongest cases tend to come from people outside the practice's payroll.
About the program.
- Do honorees pay?
- No. Not a sponsorship tier, not a submission fee, not a pay-to-play option. We earn nothing the moment a name lands on the list. Editorial, not commercial.
- Why is Macbach qualified to publish this?
- We've been healthcare-only since 2007. Concierge medicine has been a named vertical on the book since 2010. Parker Medical, Griffin Concierge Medical, Signature Medicine, plus other named and anonymized programs all sit on our concierge book today. The view comes from running acquisition, retention, and brand work across those programs for years, not from reading press releases.
- Can a Macbach client win a category?
- No. Active concierge clients are out. That's the entire reason recusal is on the page. Parker Medical, Griffin, Signature: all named, all excluded. Recusal lasts as long as the engagement does.
- How does a practice get considered for 2027?
- Email insights@macbach.com. Practice name, location, structure, a paragraph on why the program is worth studying. The editorial team reads submissions on a rolling basis. No fee. No guarantee.
- When does the full 2026 Class publish?
- Q3 2026. All ten categories named at that point. The four honorees on this page are the anchor selections we're confident enough about today to publish; the other six need more editorial review.
- Where does the evidence come from?
- First-party operational data from our own concierge book, cross-checked against what each program publishes itself. Plus U.S. News rankings where they apply, Concierge Medicine Today, AAFP data, Grand View Research market sizing, and coverage in Forbes and The Wall Street Journal. Each write-up cites what we used.
The category, in context.
The list names the programs. The pieces below show the category they sit inside.
- The 2026 Concierge Medicine Benchmark Report. Eleven sections on market structure, membership economics, acquisition, retention, geographic concentration, and the 2030 outlook.
- Concierge retention mechanics: the numbers that decide the book.
- The healthcare marketing glossary. CAC, LTV, ARPU, recurring revenue share, and the rest, defined for doctors.
- The honest healthcare marketing agency comparison.
Run your concierge program against the benchmarks.
Three minutes. Ten questions. We return a real read on where your concierge program stands against the methodology behind this list, with three specific things worth doing next.