Dr. Lisa Larkin, founder of the health care/femtech startup Ms.Medicine and owner of a Mariemont practice that offers concierge primary care tailored to women, is expanding her footprint once again – this time in the Greater Cincinnati region.
A new Concierge Medicine of Cincinnati will open in mid-September in Mason at 6499 Mason Montgomery Road.
It’s the second Concierge Medicine location in the region – Larkin in 2018 opened the original brick-and-mortar in Mariemont under the name Lisa Larkin MD and Associates before a recent rebrand. It also marks the latest office under the Ms.Medicine umbrella, a group of women’s health-focused, membership-based concierge primary care practices.
Ms.Medicine is adding three additional offices, including another in Ohio, by early 2024.
Mason fit as the next market in terms of both the provider and demographics. The office will be led by Dr. Shazia Chaudhry, a local hospitalist.
She and Larkin were colleagues at the UC Health Women's Center in West Chester, which Larkin led as director before leaving to launch her Mariemont practice.
“Mason is the right location to expand locally with the same model as Mariemont,” Larkin told me. “Under the broad term of women’s health, no one there is doing the primary care concierge model. The area is rapidly growing in terms of population, and it’s the right age demographic as well – women 40 to 65, in their post-reproductive phase of life who don’t really need an OB-GYN anymore.”
Larkin launched Ms.Medicine to serve dual purposes. Women are severely underserved when it comes to health care, she said, and as a physician, she often felt spread too thin: As a hospital-employed doctor, patient visits were too short, and her compensation was based on productivity.
Under the concierge-care model visits are longer and more personalized. Appointments run 30, 60, sometimes even 90 minutes long. Instead of seeing 27 or 28 patients a day, like before, Larkin sees 12 to 14.
The practices don’t take insurance. Instead, the offices typically require a membership fee for conveniences such as same-day appointments and 24/7 access. Removing commercial payors gives doctors more freedom.
The Mason office, which is located across from Mason Middle School, is roughly the same size as Mariemont, although it will have four exam rooms versus six.
The space has been completely gutted and renovated. Luke Mitchell with Fairfield-based BHI General Contracting handled the work.
A lease was signed in June, and construction started shortly thereafter, Larkin said.
Following Mason’s opening, Ms.Medicine has a steady cadence of new offices to follow, although Larkin said she’s opting for slower growth versus the faster pace the company had initially set. There are no plans to fundraise at least over the next 12-24 months, and overall, the group will open just three to five new locations in 2024.
A new office in Cleveland is scheduled to debut mid-September, while brick-and-mortars in Boston and the Minneapolis area will follow next year.
Massachusetts and Minnesota both represent new states. Ms.Medicine currently has offices in Colorado, Missouri, Michigan, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Florida.
