A local physician and founder of a health care/femtech startup is expanding her Cincinnati footprint once more. A new office – the third in the region for the group – is set to open this summer following the addition of three Mercy Health providers.
Dr. Lisa Larkin, owner of Concierge Medicine of Cincinnati and CEO of Ms.Medicine, a network of practices that offer membership-based primary care tailored to women, will open a third location in Sycamore Township this summer. The site, located at 5050 E. Galbraith Road, across from Kenwood Towne Centre, is currently under renovation.
For Larkin and company, it will be the second new office to open in less than one-years’ time. Concierge Medicine of Cincinnati opened in Mason in September 2023. Larkin in 2018 opened her original brick-and-mortar in Mariemont under the name Lisa Larkin MD and Associates before a recent rebrand.
Larkin is now the sole owner of the business – she had raised venture funding in the past – and has adopted a more slow and steady approach to growth. It wasn’t part of the plan to open a third location so quickly, she said, but the stars aligned.
Dr. Lisa Joliat, an internal medicine physician who’s been with Mercy Health since 2011, will lead the Kenwood office. She has worked with Larkin previously and recently approached her about coming back on board, Larkin said.
Joining Joliat are two other physicians: Drs. Claire Kappa and Jacqueline Ward, also from Mercy Health. They will officially join the group in June, bumping Concierge Medicine's total provider count to 10.
“All three are outstanding, busy and well-established internists in the community, and they were really excited to make a change,” Larkin told me. “Their (interest) really pushed me to say, ‘OK, I should do this.’ It’s a little sooner than I would have otherwise, but the opportunity was just too great to pass up.”
The Kenwood location, which neighbors Kurtzman Plastic Surgery, is 3,000 square feet. In terms of its planned look and feel, it will be very similar to Mariemont and Mason, Larkin said. Fairfield-based BHI General Contracting is handling the renovation. It also performed the Mason remodel.
The practice will open with a wait list as the new providers transition over, Larkin added. The office should be ready to open by July.
“The patient response has been overwhelmingly positive,” Larkin said.
Concierge Medicine of Cincinnati specializes in age- and sex-specific primary care and women’s health. It recently expanded its outpatient gynecology offerings, offering endometrial biopsies, IUD placements and contraceptive care – a newer niche for the group.
Larkin initially launched Ms.Medicine, which now has a national footprint, 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: During her time under hospital employment, 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.
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, she said.
Kenwood is one of five new locations planned in 2024 under the Ms.Medicine umbrella. An office in Greater Boston debuted in February, while another opened in a Minneapolis suburb in April.
Locations in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Grand Rapids, Mich., are also scheduled to come online this year.
“That’s the pace I want to see,” Larkin said.
The growth, while continued, is admittedly slower than previously planned. Back in 2022, Larkin said the goal was to quickly scale to 50 sites. The addition of Kenwood would give it 14.
"The pipeline remains strong,” she said. “Medicine is hard. I'm trying to be thoughtful about who I'm onboarding and how we're operationalizing it. But I’m still very optimistic.”
