Membership
Membership at Phil Zhou Medical is $99 a month per person, and it buys something insurance cannot sell: a doctor whose number is in your phone, and who answers when you text it.
No insurance is billed, and you can cancel at any time.
Secure checkout through Stripe, by card or bank account. Billed monthly, cancel any time.
The simplest way to think about it
It works like a gym membership. You pay one predictable fee, and you use it whenever you need it. There is no per-visit charge to weigh up first, no deductible to meet before it counts, and no bill afterwards to wonder about.
The difference from a gym is that the barrier here was never motivation — it was friction. Most people put off the call, the question, the thing they have been meaning to ask for a month, because reaching a doctor is an ordeal. Remove the cost of asking and people ask earlier, which is usually when a problem is still small.
This model has a name — direct primary care — and a growing number of physicians are moving to it, for much the same reason patients like it: it puts the relationship back at the center and takes the billing apparatus out of the middle. HSA for America keeps a readable general guide to how DPC works if you want an outside explanation rather than mine.
If you are self-employed or you run a business, there is a version of all this written for you — including the 2026 rule change that lets you pay this membership from a health savings account, and group memberships bought by a company for its staff. That is on the for business page.
It changes what gets brought up
This is the part that surprises people. When a visit is not a scarce, expensive, fifteen-minute resource, patients raise things they would otherwise sit on.
There is almost always something — the symptom you have had for two years and never mentioned at an annual physical because there was no time and it felt too small to spend the visit on. Bring it. That is what this is for.
The same goes for the question that is not quite about you. If a friend or a family member is dealing with something and you want a doctor’s plain, off-the-cuff read on it in general terms, ask. I cannot diagnose someone who is not my patient, but I can usually tell you whether it sounds like something that needs attention soon, and what kind of doctor they should be looking for.
What membership includes
- Call or text your physician directly, 24/7 — texts reach me, not an answering service
- Most refills take one text message — no portal, no phone tree, no appointment to ask for something routine, when it is clinically appropriate to refill
- Same day appointments — and a visit arranged outside it when the Tuesday-to-Thursday slots will not work
- Wholesale pricing on labs, imaging, and medications, passed through without markup (relevant for cash payers)
- A physician who knows your history and coordinates with specialists on your behalf
What membership does not include
Membership is primary, urgent, and pain care. It does not replace catastrophic coverage. The following are outside the membership:
- Hospitalization and emergency room care
- Surgical procedures and specialist consultations
- Obstetric care and deliveries (I’m not a woman health specialist)
- The cost of medications, labs, and imaging themselves — you get my wholesale rate, not free care (the one exception is the weight loss program, which is $200 a month with everything included)
Covering the other half
Direct primary care deliberately handles one half of the problem: everyday care, and a lot of it. It was never designed to stand alone against a hospitalization or a cancer diagnosis. Something has to cover the catastrophic half, and for most people that is still insurance.
Some members pair a DPC membership with health sharing instead — a member-based arrangement in which a community of members contributes to each other’s large medical bills. The pairing is the intended shape of the model: the membership handles the frequent, predictable care, and the sharing plan stands behind the rare, expensive event. HSA for America explains the combination in detail here.
This practice does not sell health sharing plans, receive commission on them, or administer them, and I am not your financial adviser. I mention it because it is the other half of this model and you should know it exists — not as a recommendation. Read the terms, and decide with someone qualified to advise you on it.
Why a membership at all?
Because good medicine is continuous, and pay-per-visit quietly punishes you for reaching out. A flat monthly fee removes the calculation of whether a question is worth $150 — you just ask. That is when problems get caught early, and early is where medicine actually wins.
It also lets this practice stay small. A membership panel funded directly by patients does not need volume, so it can be capped at a size where every patient gets a real relationship.
How to join
1. Enroll
Sign up in a couple of minutes on the Subscribe page, with a secure Stripe checkout. Your membership begins the day you enroll, and you get the direct number right away.
2. Establish care
Book your first visit. A full history, an unhurried exam, and a plan built around what you actually want out of your health.
3. Use it
Call or text with a question, a symptom, or a refill. That is the whole point of the arrangement, and there is no per-message charge for using it.
Prefer to talk first? A free consultation is always available, and there is no obligation on either side. Some people want to meet the doctor before putting a card down; that is entirely reasonable.
Billed monthly through Stripe. You may cancel at any time.
Ready when you are
Call or text (562) 575-6816 to book a visit, or join as a VIP member and have a doctor in your corner every day of the year.