We’ve all been there: You slip on black ice walking up the driveway at 10:00 pm. Your child falls out of bed at and breaks an arm at 3:00 am. Fast forward to that five hour wait in a hospital emergency room, watching patients needing immediate attention take priority. All too often, waiting rooms overcrowded with sick, injured and whining patients result in stressful, inconvenient and impersonal experiences. Although urgent care facilities act as an alternative, yet another gap lies in healthcare options.
Through his first-hand experience of making house calls day and night, Dr. Bernard Kruger saw an opportunity to fill that gap. His solution? Priority Private Care, a new members-only medical concierge service at the intersection of healthcare and luxury, that he founded with Benjamin Kruger and Andrew Olanow. PPC’s innovative business model offers clients help around-the-clock, servicing those who are willing to pay a premium for an all-around improved experience.
Although insurance is not accepted, membership includes unlimited medical visits—twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. “At our state-of-the-art facility, our best-in-class doctors provide the highest quality of medical care with maximum convenience, privacy and personalization at any time,” says co-founder Ben Kruger. “Furthermore, by taking care of those who would otherwise be going to emergency rooms when they do not absolutely need it, we are doing a small part in helping to take stress off an already overburdened system.”
Members become part of a community that Priority Private Care has established, which centers around the basic principle of getting to know your client. “We get as much information from them as possible,” says Kruger. “To the extent that we can, we will reach out to our members’ primary physicians to make sure we have all their medical records.” Thanks to Dr. Kruger’s extensive experience in the industry, patients also have access to top-notch specialists and leading hospitals.
“The stakes are very high,” Ben Kruger notes, referencing the pressures and responsibility on the shoulders of any entrepreneur, especially those in the medical field. But receiving the following personal testimonial from one patient within the first week of opening the business was a powerful affirmation. “I was there from start to finish—about one and a half hours—all in a quiet room of my own, without the chaos of a hospital ER. When I last had the same procedure preformed in a hospital ER, it took seven hours,” Kruger recalls of the feedback. He adds: “At the end of the day, we are giving an experience that would have otherwise been painful or uncomfortable.”
