Based on a PracticeCare® podcast conversation, Dr. Will Harper on Differentiating Your Practice, with Dr. Will Harper, founder of Harper Health, a five-location concierge internal medicine practice in Chicago and Florida.
What kind of practice is Harper Health, and how is concierge medicine different from traditional primary care?
Dr. Will Harper started Harper Health in 2016 with two employees and 48 patients. Seven years later it’s seven doctors, five locations, and over a thousand patients.
Concierge medicine runs on membership. Patients pay an annual fee for a smaller doctor panel, same-day or next-day access, and longer appointments. None of that access is a given in traditional primary care.
Who does Harper Health actually consider its competition?
Not the big Chicago hospital systems — Northwestern, Rush, University of Chicago, North Shore. Those systems are a feeder, not a competitor. Patients frustrated with phone trees and a 48-hour portal response time are exactly who ends up calling Harper Health.
The real competition is other concierge practices, which have multiplied in his market over the past seven years. Most run one or two clinicians out of a single location. Harper Health’s five-location, multi-doctor model is closer to unique.
What makes Harper Health different from other concierge practices, not just from traditional medicine?
The concierge label by itself isn’t a differentiator anymore. Other companies will convert a traditional practice into one. That’s become a well-worn path. What’s harder to copy is the instinct to find and eliminate friction everywhere it shows up.
A few examples of what that looks like in practice:
- A human answers the phone. No phone tree, no routing, no message left unreturned.
- When a patient has a bad experience with an outside referral, that feedback goes straight back to the referring doctor before the next patient is sent their way.
- Office size is capped intentionally — two to three doctors per location — so the waiting room never fills up, no matter how much the practice grows.
How does Harper Health differentiate on clinical care, not just service?
Dr. Harper spent years running the executive physical practice at the University of Chicago before starting Harper Health. That background shaped a comprehensive annual physical most concierge practices don’t offer, backed by equipment most don’t invest in.
Two examples: VO2 max testing, which measures fitness level as a proxy for longevity, and DEXA body composition scans that track visceral fat over years rather than just weight. Patients see hard numbers change over time, which builds a level of engagement a standard physical doesn’t.
Why is this kind of service differentiation harder to copy than the business model itself?
A concierge model is easy to replicate. Treating friction-reduction as a discipline is not. It takes noticing friction, asking staff and patients to flag it, and building the habit of fixing it — repeatedly, not once.
That instinct shows up in small decisions: how the phone gets answered, how a patient is greeted at the door, whether a referral partner who dropped the ball hears about it. None of it requires scale. It requires attention, and most practices never build the habit.
What’s a low-cost way to start differentiating on patient experience?
It doesn’t have to cost anything. How someone’s greeted at the front desk, who answers the phone, and how quickly a call gets picked up are all free to change and immediately noticeable to a patient.
People remember how a visit made them feel more than the specific words anyone said. A warm, present front desk does more for referrals than most paid advertising ever will.
How should a practice owner get started figuring out their own difference?
Start with why, not with tactics. What does the practice value? What kind of experience should patients walk away with? What do you want the practice to be known for? A vague instruction like “smile more” doesn’t give staff anything to actually act on — the answer has to be specific enough to communicate to the whole team.
Then pick one thing you can execute this week instead of waiting for a full strategy. Ambition without a starting point is how most practice owners get stuck before they begin.
A final note
I hear a version of this from clients constantly: we offer great care, so why aren’t we growing? Everyone believes they’re different. Few can say specifically how, and fewer still can point to something a competitor can’t easily copy. Will’s practice isn’t hard to copy because of the concierge label — it’s hard to copy because eliminating friction is built into how his team operates, day in and day out. That habit is available to any private practice, regardless of specialty or budget.
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