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In the mid-1990s, two doctors working with members of the Seattle Supersonics designed the plan for concierge medicine. Their idea was to charge as much as six figures per year to provide “highly attentive medicine,” as one doctor put it, to a few ultra-rich patients at a time.

Concierge medicine has evolved since then. Today, concierge doctors often charge patients more reasonable annual fees in place of billing health insurance companies. Incentives include same-day appointments and 24-hour access. Concierge care can cost as little as $600 annually, and studies show it is popularizing: Last year, MedPAC, a Congress-created commission, found that the number of concierge practices had increased fivefold since 2005.

Is concierge care worth the money?

“If you don’t have health insurance and you’re someone who sees a doctor frequently, [concierge prices are] not that bad,” says Christie Hazlet, 28, who works for a film production company outside Los Angeles.

Hazlet’s primary care doctor transitioned to a concierge model in 2009. That transition, Hazlet says, was abrupt. She received a letter in the mail one day from her doctor saying she could either pay a $2,000 annual membership fee or find a new doctor. She considered joining but decided against it.

“With my health insurance, doctor visits are $40,” Hazlet says, noting that she generally sees a primary care doctor twice annually. “It wasn’t cost effective.”

But some concierge medicine advocates say she should reconsider.

Concierge care is as much about preventing problems as reacting to problems when they arise, says Roberta Greenspan, the Chicago-based president of Specialdocs Consultants, which helps doctors transition into concierge practices.

Greenspan says most concierge patients are in their mid-50s and prices for concierge care vary regionally: In New York or Boston, she says, concierge doctors can charge between $1,800 and $2,500 annually on average. In Chicago, it’s between $1,600 and $2,200. Outside major cities, she says concierge doctors can charge $1,800 maximum before pricing themselves out of the market.

The cost is worth it, she says, even if a patient doesn’t frequently visit a doctor.

“It’s not the patient’s job to say two doctor visits per year is enough,” she says. “Many times the patient may think that they don’t need care. But discomfort or symptoms may indicate that an illness or problem is looming.”

That last concern, she says, attracts many people to concierge services.

Consider Janice Picker, who owns a financial planning service in suburban Chicago. She’s married, with six children. She pays for her housekeeper’s healthcare, travels often and says her concierge doctor helps manage her family’s hectic schedule. The cost is $1,000 per year, per person. He responds quickly to problems and also visits her home quarterly to conduct preventative tests on her family.

“There’s a seamless regimen now to my healthcare,” she says. “Quarterly, we get a comparative analysis of what’s improving and not improving in our health. [Our doctor] makes things easy. He’s more like a partner than a doctor.”

That’s necessary for some. For others it’s not.

“A lot of patients aren’t looking for hand holding,” says Dr. Tom X. Lee, who founded One Medical Group in San Francisco to offer lower-priced concierge services. “Most people look for a trusted relationship, but that doesn’t need to be in person all the time.”

And a reliance on frequent testing gives some doctors pause.

In a March 2010 essay in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, Michael Stillman, a Boston-based, non-concierge doctor, questioned the motives of concierge doctors.

Concierge medicine is “a product to be sold, not unlike an expensive car or a high-end kitchen appliance,” he says. “It is simply a way for physicians to have a much more reasonable lifestyle and for patients to feel (whether or not this is true) that they are getting the very best care.”

One of Stillman’s patients, a 55-year-old named Bill who asked to remain anonymous, joined a $5,000-a-year concierge practice in Boston, because the location was convenient to him. He lasted six months, and then decided to leave because he felt that, other than usually not having a very long wait, he was “not getting all that much more” than he had from other primary care physicians.

That said, both Stillman and Bill agree it’s most important to find a doctor you feel comfortable with – whether that doctor has a concierge or more conventional practice.

Many concierge practitioners agree.

“When people come to me for concierge care I tell them to interview a lot of people,” says Dr. John Levinson, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital who founded AllCare, a concierge practice in Boston. “Your time is valuable. You should look for a doctor who makes your life easy while he or she keeps you healthy rather than the other way around.”