😱 Could Gyms Put Doctors Out of Business?
Luxury gyms are looking to be one-stop-shops for health, spelling trouble for Primary Care Doctors' business.
Your Gym Wants To Take Care of Everything
…Or Does It?
Primary care doctors have long been a staple of the American healthcare plan, and they’re generally the most affordable visits offered in this wonky healthcare system.
These doctors work as generalists for your health, keeping you abreast of mineral/vitamin levels in your blood tests, blood pressure, and other health metrics.
There is a problem, though, with being a health generalist.
Doctors are trained to manage symptoms, not prevent them.
This could partly be our doing — the patients.
The unfortunate nature of doctor’s offices is that most Americans don’t visit them unless they’re afflicted with an illness.
With concerns about healthspan and living longer on the rise…
Some think offering preventative healthcare options outside the doctor’s office might make more sense.
The hope is that with blood tests and new assessments readily available, people might be more inclined to take their health a bit more seriously.
There’s some push for labwork to be done more often than the standard “once every few years (if you’re healthy).”
Enter Luxury Gym Blood Testing
Life Time Fitness and Equinox — two luxury gym chains — are moving to offer preventative blood tests and metabolic panels to their members to ensure better health metrics and more personalized personal training.
Life Time offers two packages—the “Essentials” and the “Ultimate All-In-One”—to give its members a comprehensive understanding of their biology.
Equinox is partnering with Function Health to do the same, giving its members access to “100+ lab tests every year for less than $1.38 per day,” says Function Health founder Jonathan Swerdlin.
The move toward health proactivity comes not long after both chains announced they would be launching GLP-1 programs, which feels apt given that usage of those weight loss drugs usually leads to a host of other issues (gastrointestinal problems, gallstones, and credit card debt, to name a few).
Generally, it is a great thing that more people will take blood tests because of these programs.
Many in the health and wellness industry are pushing for more agency over individual health, which can give many people the sense of control they may feel is lacking.
My hat is off to these gyms leading the charge on this front (except for the GLP-1 Agonist prescriptions).
BUT…
Are Primary Care Doctors Going Out Of Business Now?
The good news (or bad news, depending on which side you’re on) is: No, primary care doctors won’t be shunted to the side because of these luxury gyms’ programs.
At first look, it might seem like gyms could suddenly become one-stop shops for health and wellness with blood tests available — though there’s no clear indication about pricing or how it might restructure membership dues.
But doctors’ offices should still be around for a long time.
The statistics that make this case are as follows:
Memberships to the above gyms range between $179-$400 per month, a price much higher than the average American is willing to fork over for a gym membership
Most Americans with insurance could pay a fraction of that for 1-2 metabolic panels per year at most doctor’s offices
Even for uninsured Americans (a staggering 8%, or 26 million — maybe more), one routine panel (with basic measurements) costs $650 at a doctor’s office
The selling point for luxury gyms’ bloodwork services is that they plan to have more informative, actionable steps following bloodwork results to help you control the outcomes of further blood tests.
This is still valuable, especially if the chains hire nutritionists and health coaches to supplement their staff with movement-based and dietary guidance.
However, not all primary care doctors are generalists, and there are still great PCPs who give great advice and stay in the know about the latest literature.
An Inflection Point For Doctors
I think PCPs — especially those stuck in the past with medical practice — will evolve from this new era of gym-bloodwork wellness to be more informed and involved in their patients’ lives, pushing themselves for more understanding about how to act on their health preventatively rather than symptomatically.
Does labwork in a gym sound better than the doctor’s office?
Maybe.
Taking the spookiness and guilt away from the doctor and bringing curiosity to health in a gym setting could motivate more people to join these chains.
But the real message here is that regular blood testing should be more of a priority for insured people.
When getting labwork, ask your doctor for specific results or readings to see what bigger picture you can find about your health.
Lab results are taken on tons of different biomarkers and often aren’t shown to patients because they don’t request them.
If you haven’t had your bloodwork done recently, get it done, even if everything is fine.
Or, sooner or later, your local gym will be hunting you down in your inbox, trying to sell you labwork for who knows how much money.
I’m only half-joking.