Concierge Key Expands Premium Specialist Access App to Android

Concierge Key, a company that works to connect patients with top-notch specialists (for a premium) via mobile app, today launched its services for those using Android smartphones.

The company launched in the first quarter of this year for iOS users in select markets, allowing users to bypass wait times and book appointments with highly-rated specialists, sometimes as soon as the same day. It now has a handful of participating physicians in most states, with concentrations in dense urban centers.

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Company founder and CEO Robert Grant, MBA, built Concierge Key after noticing that his primary care physician had adopted a concierge system—with an annual retainer fee of a few thousand dollars. Realizing that such a service did not exist for specialists, he created one.

“We’ve all been through this bureaucratic, impersonal system that has forgotten we are customers. The whole industry right now is upside down,” Grant told Healthcare Analytics News™ in a previous interview. “What we tried to build here is something that I and other people in my office would value as consumers.”

Grant, in a statement, noted that the expansion to Android more than doubles the number of smartphone users capable of engaging with Concierge Key’s app. About 53% of all smartphone owners in the US have an iPhone. “We wanted to ensure that our platform was accessible to that user base, too,” he said, adding also that the new locations represented an interest in “expanding the innovative Concierge Key Health service to include even more discerning consumers."

The increased availability doesn’t necessarily double the company’s potential market customer base, however: Android users, as a demographic, have significantly lower median incomes than iPhone users, which may make them less likely to seek a premium service. That trend also seems particularly pronounced in all of the brand’s available markets, as demonstrated by this snarkily-titled series of device usage heat maps from Business Insider.

Concierge Key isn’t cheap: It’s a $3,000 per-year service for individuals, with more expensive packages to cover family members. But Grant poses it as a value proposition: Rather than forcing patients through into a confusing series of referrals through their primary care physician or insurance company, it allows them to go directly to a curated group of specialists.

“What percentage of flights are done through a travel agent versus online?” he asked during our earlier interview. “It’s just more convenient.”

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