Experience with One Medical?

by philg

As Toucan Sam likes to remind us, Barack Obama said “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” but our new insurance company apparently did not get the Presidential memo.

It is thus time for me to shop for a new physician. The new insurer assigned me to a doctor, but after a couple of hours on hold with the big clinic where he works, I learned that (a) he isn’t accepting new patients, and (b) he is mostly retired.

One Medical has a couple of offices here in Boston and claims to be patient-centric rather than insurance-company-centric. Does anyone have experience with this concierge-lite primary care system? (it is $200/year, which is a lot better than waiting on hold for hours!)

Update… part of the sign-up form:

(I decided to sign up based on positive reviews from people here and also a friend who drives 30 minutes from the Boston suburbs to continue his treatment at One Medical. As readers can no doubt imagine, it was tough for me to resist entering a long essay into the Gender Information box. And, then, of course, I had to de-subscribe from One Medical after it turned out that they accept Tufts insurance, yes, but not the particular flavor of Tufts “Platinum” that we have.)

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22 thoughts on “Experience with One Medical?”

  1. I have no experience with them whatsoever, but look at it this way: how much are a couple of hours of your time on Hold worth? For $200, you might as well sign up and see how good they are vs. how good they claim to be and then, if they suck, write a blog post about how and why they suck and demand your money back.

    I’ve spent at least 20 hours On Hold this year for various reasons and even though my time is worth a fraction of yours, I would have done it just for the experience of seeing whether it was worth it. Which is a sad statement, but true, alas.

  2. I used One Medical in the Bay Area. It was fine. Basically, you are just paying a fee for the privilege of being able to book an appointment within a reasonable time frame (no comment on what this implies about the U.S. health care system!). The physicians were good.

  4. I’ve enrolled in MDVIP and love it. It’s hard to separate out its values from the access to my decades-long, wholeheartedly-trusted PCP who switched into it from a big ol’ practice. It’s considerably more expensive but might be worth it.

  5. Finally, a topic where I can comment!

    I was introduced to One Medical by my friend and I absolutely love it. I absolutely hated the current PCP experience in the NYC area. No easy to way to schedule the appointment and even after scheduling, it never ever starts on time. OneMedical has a fantastic app where you can schedule the appointments, they expect you to show up 5 minutes before the scheduled time and you will be seen exactly at the time of your appointment. The App also captures all your history (including medications and vaccine details). Their offices and PCPs are fantastic. I have designated one near my home but if I want, I can see another PCP near work and they will have the full history of my treatment. For simpler questions/queries regarding health or prescription renewal, you can do it through the app, no need to visit the office.

    I can not recommend OneMedical highly enough.

  6. I’ve been a client for about 6 years. I started using One Medical when I worked in downtown Boston, and have continued to use them now that I live and work in the suburbs.

    I recommend them without reservation.

  7. I can recommend. I have found the primary care doctors to be of middling quality (I’m young and healthy, so this doesn’t bother me). However, they have been very helpful in getting fast referrals to high-quality specialists; months faster than alternative routes. This contingent ability to “jump the queue” is a big value-add.

  10. It amazes me to see that after paying a premium for a product / service, we still have to pay a *separate* premium to get “more” out of the product / service that we already paid for!

    Like it or not, this is another form of *hidden* inflation that doesn’t count toward our CPI.

    Question: how long before One Medical grows and becomes another version of the problem we have now?

    • It’s true and it’s disgusting. The insurance providers should hang. I spent 20 hours earlier this year “choosing” a Primary Care physician – and the resources available from the insurance providers are: 1) Incomplete 2) Often out of date 3) Dead wrong (doctor not taking patients, doctor retired, like Philg’s story). You wait on hold for hours and talk to people who don’t know anything. Then you have to rely on internet reviews to figure out whether you want one doctor or another. It’s garbage. You’re basically on your own.

      This concierge service exists because the rest of the system is so awful. If $200 is what it takes to get decent service and advice, it’s probably worth it for Philg and others similarly situated. But everyone else fends for themselves.

    • One would think that in a world connected by a ubiquitous high-speed packet-switched network like the Internet, it would a simple thing for a doctor’s office/practice/receptionist to check a box on a form that says: “We are not taking patients” and have that reflected with every insurance provider the office accepts. But it doesn’t work that way. I called several doctors and got the same story:

      “I’m sorry but we’re not accepting new patients at this time.”
      “But the insurance website says you are.”
      “I’m sorry, sir but that information isn’t correct.”

    • George: You do raise a good point. As a sign of how conditioned I have become to the U.S. system, it strikes me as normal that we would pay $30,000/year for a family health insurance plan AND also that I would have to pay something extra in order to be treated as a valued customer.

  11. To folks who are paying to use One Medical, how different is this from the online service that your Dr. / hospital participate in? For me, I can reach out to my Dr. online, for questions, appointments and test results. There is https://www.patientgateway.org/ and https://mychart.mah.org/ I have used those online services with no wait or hassle at all. Always heard back email or phone call from the office within 24 hours.

    Furthermore, my health care provider offers online consultation (video or phone call) all for free via a program called “2nd.MD” Not only will they call you back within 24 hours (with your permission, they have access to all of your medical record) they will give you options to meet that fits your schedule and they always follow up. I used them and they have been great, it is like getting a second opinion.

    Overall, at least for me, I find the healthcare service to be great. The part I do not like is the dental. The cap is very small and based on what condition you have, it can cost you a lot. I have heard painful stories how quickly a person or family hits the cap and I know family members travel back home (Syria) to get a work done for a fraction of the cost even when they are paying for the travel expanses.

    • You’re fortunate. Once you have a good provider network, find your PCP, make sure they take your insurance, etc., you’re generally in good shape. But even still, there are wrinkles if you want to see someone that isn’t in the network. That was my experience after I went through the hoops.

  12. There’s no +1 option here so I’ll say that I had the same experience. Picked a doctor from the website, waited on hold for hours, found out they weren’t accepting new patients. Complained to the insurance company, which said doctors are responsible for updating the insurer’s website.

    Got another doctor, scheduled a physical but with a 5 month delay. Doctor left practice before the scheduled appointment.

  13. After three different meds failed to solvemy frequent nighttime urination problem, in Dec. 2019, my (generally very satisfactory) HMO PCP referred me to an in-network urologist – Dr. Patel.

    Dr. Patel only sees new patients at 10:00am on Wednesdays and scheduled me for an appointment three months out. Then covid hit and my appointment got rescheduled for another 3 months out.

    On the day of my July 2020 appointment, I and several other patients were lined up at the front door of the facility waiting to sign in only to be instructed to go wait in our cars in the summer FL heat until called into the building for our scheduled appointment. I called Dr. Patel and cancelled. I never rescheduled. My ailment continues.

  14. For folks who have had bad experience either with their insurance provider or Dr. office, how can One Medical solve those issues? Can someone please help me out here see what I’m missing?

    Btw, I have had some of those bad experiences myself too. I’m not the lucky person here but the fact that my Dr. and health provider use online tools, which I have been utilizing for the past some 6 years, it has improved my experience.

    The one thing that I hated the most, is the long, long wait at the Dr. office, that I used to have with some Dr. I show up on time, wait in the waiting room for well over 30 to 60 min. Then called into the cramp, locked up exam room only to wait another 15 to 30 min for the Dr. to show up and him me his/her 5-10 min chat.

  15. The important thing in choosing a physician and a medical practice is the diversity, equity, and inclusion of the practice. Make a point of insisting on diverse doctors, and go the extra mile by choosing African American doctors, especially for surgery and complex specialty practices.

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