Four categories dominate the search results when you look for a better way to see a doctor: One Medical, Parsley Health, Ro, and concierge medicine. All four sell something they call a membership. They are not the same product, and three of the four are not what most people picture when they imagine "a doctor who actually knows me."
One Medical charges $199 a year and bills your insurance for visits [1]. Parsley Health charges $150 a month on top of your insurance for functional medicine [3]. Ro charges $39 to start and $149 a month, but it sells you a prescription program, not a primary care doctor [5]. Concierge medicine is a broad category that is different form the other three companies. It usually charges $3,000 to over $40,000 a year for a named physician who carries a small patient panel [7].
This guide lines them up side by side so you can see which one buys access to a real, ongoing doctor relationship, and which ones buy something else.
One Medical: Tech-Enabled Primary Care, Owned by Amazon
One Medical is a national primary care brand that Amazon acquired in 2023 for $3.9 billion [2]. The standalone membership runs $199 per year, and Amazon Prime members pay $99 per year for the same thing [1]. That fee buys app-based booking and 24/7 messaging. The actual office visits, video visits, and remote visits are scheduled and billed to your insurance, with copays and deductibles applying exactly as they would at any traditional primary care office [1].
One Medical operates in roughly 19 metro markets, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Washington DC, and Seattle [1]. It is real primary care, and a 2020 study in JAMA Network Open found that One Medical's employer-sponsored model produced 45 percent lower total spending and 33 percent fewer emergency room visits in a large covered cohort [9].
The catch is panel size. One Medical scales primary care across large patient volumes, the same way a traditional practice does. Your doctor at One Medical is not carrying a small panel and is not your personal physician. You may see a different clinician each visit. The membership pays for the software and the convenience, not for one doctor's time.
Parsley Health: Functional Medicine, Now Billed Through Insurance
Parsley Health is a functional medicine practice founded by Robin Berzin, MD, and headquartered in New York [4]. Functional medicine tries to find the root causes of chronic problems, including gut, hormonal, autoimmune, and metabolic dysfunction, rather than only managing symptoms. Parsley runs virtual-first nationwide, with in-person clinics in New York City and Los Angeles [4].
In April 2026, Parsley went in-network with every major United States insurer. Members now pay $150 a month, or $1,500 a year, on top of their insurance, and visits and testing are billed through their plan [3]. Initial visits run 60 minutes, follow-ups are 30 or 60 minutes, and each member gets a five-person care team that includes a clinician and a nutrition coach [4].
Parsley is genuine depth on chronic and functional care. What it is not is an everyday primary care doctor. The clinical model is built around root-cause workups and protocols, not around the doctor who refills your blood pressure medication for the next 20 years and picks up when you have a fever. For that comparison in full, see our breakdown of what Parsley going nationwide means for concierge and DPC.
Ro: A Prescription Channel, Not a Doctor
Ro is the outlier in this lineup. It launched in 2017 as Roman, co-founded by Zachariah Reitano, Saman Rahmanian, and Rob Schutz, and was valued at $7 billion in 2022 [6]. It built its business on direct-to-consumer telehealth for specific conditions: erectile dysfunction, hair loss, and now weight loss with GLP-1 medications.
The economics tell the story. The Ro Body weight-loss membership costs $39 for the first month and $149 a month after that, and the GLP-1 medication is billed separately, running from $149 to more than $449 a month depending on the drug and dose [5]. You complete an online intake, a Ro-affiliated clinician reviews it, and if appropriate they prescribe and ship medication to your door [5].
That is a transaction, not a relationship. Ro is excellent at one job: getting a specific prescription to a specific person quickly. There is no small panel, no dedicated physician who tracks your full medical history, and no one coordinating your care across specialists. If you want a weight-loss prescription, Ro is built for exactly that. If you want a doctor, Ro is not selling one.
Concierge Medicine: A Small Panel and a Doctor Who Knows You
Unlike the above 3 companies concierge medicine is a category or business model of medical professions rather than a single company.
Concierge medicine is the only model in this comparison built around a dedicated physician relationship. You pay your doctor directly for enhanced access. The annual fee covers same-day appointments, 30 to 60-minute visits, and direct phone or text access to a specific doctor. Concierge practices keep panels under 300 patients per physician [7], compared with 2,000 to 2,500 at a traditional practice and the large volumes One Medical runs.
NextMD groups concierge practices into three pricing tiers:
Entry Level: $3,000 to $5,000 per year. The Cove Concierge Medicine in Castle Rock, Colorado, lists at $3,700 a year.
Premium: $5,000 to $12,000 per year, where multi-physician groups like Coastal Concierge Physicians in San Diego sit.
Ultra Premium: $15,000 and up, commonly over $40,000 per year. National brands like MD2 anchor the top.
Most concierge practices still bill insurance for clinical services like labs, imaging, and procedures. The membership fee buys the access and the small panel, which is what lets the doctor return your call after hours and spend 45 minutes with you instead of seven.
Side-by-Side Comparison
Aspect | Ro | One Medical | Parsley Health | Concierge Medicine |
|---|---|---|---|---|
What it actually is | DTC prescription program | Tech-enabled primary care | Functional medicine membership | Dedicated physician relationship |
Annual cost | $149/mo + medication billed separately | $199 (or $99 with Prime) | $1,500 + insurance | $3,000 to over $40,000 |
Dedicated doctor? | No | No (large panel) | Care team, not one PCP | Yes, one named physician |
Panel size | N/A | Traditional volumes | Care-team model | Under 300 per doctor |
Visit length | Online intake | Standard slots | 30 to 60 minutes | 30 to 60+ minutes |
24/7 access | Async messaging | App messaging | Messaging + care team | Direct phone or cell to your doctor |
Bills insurance? | No (membership cash-pay) | Yes, for visits | Yes, for visits + testing | Yes, for clinical services |
Best for | A specific prescription, fast | Healthy patients in big cities | Chronic, root-cause work | A doctor who knows you long-term |
The Cost Comparison That Actually Matters
The sticker prices range from $39 to over $40,000, but the headline number hides what you are buying.
Ro looks cheapest until you add the medication, which is the actual product. A Ro Body membership plus a GLP-1 can run $300 to $600 a month, and none of it includes a doctor who manages the rest of your health [5].
One Medical's $199 is real, but the visits run through your insurance, so a physical on a high-deductible plan can still cost you several hundred dollars before insurance pays anything [1]. The membership pays for the app, not the appointment.
Parsley's $1,500 a year now sits between the entry tier of concierge medicine and traditional primary care, and insurance covers the clinical services [3]. It is a strong value if you specifically want functional medicine depth.
Concierge costs the most up front, and it buys the one thing the other three do not sell: a small panel and a specific physician who is responsible for your whole health. The clinical case for that contact is consistent. The Society of Actuaries and Milliman found a 40.51 percent reduction in emergency room visits among direct primary care patients [8], and the same JAMA study of One Medical's employer model tied more primary care contact to 33 percent fewer ER visits [9]. More doctor access reduces expensive downstream care. Concierge simply maximizes that access per patient. For a deeper breakdown, see our 2026 guide to what concierge medicine actually costs.
Who Each One Is For
Choose Ro if you want a specific prescription, most commonly a GLP-1 for weight loss, delivered fast with minimal friction, and you already have a primary care doctor for everything else.
Choose One Medical if you live in one of its metro markets, you are healthy and use care a few times a year, and you value app booking over a long-term relationship with one physician.
Choose Parsley if you have a chronic or hard-to-diagnose condition, you want a functional medicine workup and a care team, and you have commercial insurance that now covers the visits.
Choose concierge medicine if you want to call a specific doctor and have them pick up, you manage a chronic condition that benefits from longer visits, or you want one physician coordinating your care across specialists and hospitals for years.
As always I am the CEO of NextMD but not a medical professional always talk directly to a doctor for medical needs. Nothing in this article is medical advice
Ready to compare real concierge and direct primary care practices near you? Search by city and state on NextMD, the free directory of physician-led concierge and DPC practices across all 50 states.
Sources
One Medical. (2026). Membership. One Medical. Read on One Medical
Palmer, A. (2023, February 22). Amazon closes deal to buy primary care provider One Medical. CNBC. Read on CNBC
Parsley Health. (2026). Insurance Coverage & Pricing. Parsley Health. Read on Parsley Health
Parsley Health. (2026). Our Services: Personalized Medical Care, Labs & Reviews. Parsley Health. Read on Parsley Health
Ro. (2026). Weight Loss Program Pricing. Ro. Read on Ro
Jennings, R. (2022, August 2). Ro's co-founder is leaving the company, last valued at $7B. TechCrunch. Read on TechCrunch
Mount Sinai Solutions. (2023). Concierge Care Isn't Just a Luxury. Mount Sinai Health System. Read on Mount Sinai Solutions
Busch, F., Grzeskowiak, D., & Huth, E. (2020). Direct Primary Care: Evaluating a New Model of Delivery and Financing. Society of Actuaries / Milliman. Read on SOA.org
Basu, S., Phillips, R. S., Phillips, R., Peterson, L. E., & Landon, B. E. (2020). Utilization and Cost of an Employer-Sponsored Comprehensive Primary Care Delivery Model. JAMA Network Open, 3(4):e202666. Read on JAMA Network
Source Attribution
Inspired by: parsley-health, existing One Medical comparison blog
Medical claims verified against: pricing-tiers-and-model-comparison, panel-size-standards, Mount Sinai 2023, SOA/Milliman 2020, Basu JAMA 2020
Live pricing verified: ro.co/weight-loss/pricing and parsleyhealth.com/insurance (2026-05-31)
Review Notes
4-way comparison; core insight = only concierge sells a dedicated-doctor relationship, the other three sell services/prescriptions
Reuses canonical One Medical + concierge facts/citations from published vs-One-Medical blog for consistency
Practices used: The Cove, Coastal Concierge Physicians, MD2 (rotated away from Jeff Toll to avoid repeat with One Medical blog)