Most people in Miami do not need a concierge membership. Urgent care resolves the overwhelming majority of unexpected medical problems, and a membership only earns its cost when access itself is what you are buying: a physician who already knows your history, answers you directly, and can come to your door. TrufaMED operates both, a walk-in urgent care and a concierge practice in Miami, which makes the honest answer easy to give. For the average patient with an ear infection, a sprained wrist or a fever that will not break, urgent care is the correct and far cheaper choice.
These two services get compared constantly in South Florida because the marketing around concierge medicine blurs them together. They solve different problems, and this guide separates them plainly.
The core difference in one sentence each
Urgent care is episodic. Something happened today, you need it assessed and treated today, and the relationship ends when the problem does. You arrive, a physician examines you, diagnostics happen on site, and you leave with a plan.
Concierge medicine is continuous. You pay an annual membership fee for ongoing access to a physician who manages your health across the year, holds your full history, and is reachable outside of a waiting room. The visit is one small part of what the fee covers.
Neither replaces the other. An urgent care visit will not manage your thyroid over eighteen months. A concierge physician will not put a cast on your ankle at eleven at night in a clinic with imaging on site. The question is which one matches the problem you actually have.
What urgent care handles
Urgent care exists for the problem that is real, is today, and is not an emergency. At TrufaMED that covers a wide range, and the clinic is equipped rather than improvised. It is the only Joint Commission accredited urgent care in Florida, which means the same accreditation body that reviews hospitals reviews this clinic.
- Fevers, sore throats, sinus and respiratory illness
- Sprains, strains, minor fractures and wound care
- Ear pain, eye irritation, rashes and allergic reactions
- Stomach illness, dehydration and food poisoning
- Urinary symptoms, headaches and unexplained pain
- Work, school and travel physicals
- On site diagnostics including labs, imaging and ultrasound
Care is physician led, and the clinic is open seven days a week: Monday through Friday 9 AM to 9 PM, Saturday 11 AM to 11 PM, and Sunday 12 PM to 8 PM. Walk in or register ahead. Most patients are in and out with a diagnosis, a prescription and a follow up plan, and no membership is involved at any point.
If you live or stay on the barrier island, the practical detail is proximity. The clinic sits at 9445 Harding Ave in Surfside, which puts urgent care in Miami Beach within a short drive of Bal Harbour, North Beach and Indian Creek.
What a concierge membership actually buys
A membership buys three things: attention, availability and continuity. You get a physician who has read your chart before you speak, direct contact that does not route through a call queue, appointments that are not compressed into a rushed slot, and coordination of the specialists, labs and imaging that ordinary scheduling leaves you to arrange yourself.
What it does not buy is a different standard of clinical care in an emergency. A membership does not change what happens if you have chest pain at 3 AM. That is still a 911 call and an emergency department. Anyone selling concierge medicine as a substitute for emergency services is describing something that does not exist.
Full details of the tiers are on the concierge medicine membership page. The structure is straightforward: three levels, priced annually (paid in full or in four quarterly installments), with house call allowances that scale with the tier.
Urgent care and concierge medicine side by side
| Urgent care | Concierge membership | |
|---|---|---|
| What you are buying | Treatment for a problem happening now | Ongoing access to a physician across the year |
| Commitment | None, pay per visit | Annual membership fee |
| Who knows your history | The physician reviews it at the visit | Your physician already holds it |
| Where you are seen | 9445 Harding Ave, Surfside | Clinic, your home or your hotel |
| Best for | Acute illness and injury | Complex health, demanding schedules, families |
| Insurance | Insurance or self pay at registration | Membership fee is separate from insurance |
Who genuinely benefits from a membership
There is a real population for whom concierge medicine is a sound purchase. It is smaller than the marketing suggests, and it tends to look like this.
- People managing several conditions at once. When three specialists, two medication lists and a rotating set of labs are in play, a physician who holds the whole picture prevents the gaps that appear between separate practices.
- People whose time is genuinely expensive. If a half day lost to a waiting room costs more than the membership fee, the arithmetic answers itself.
- Families with young children. Illness arrives at inconvenient hours and rarely one child at a time. Direct access to a physician who knows all of them changes how those nights go.
- Frequent travelers and part year residents. Continuity is hard to maintain when you are in Miami four months a year. A membership holds the thread.
- People who have been failed by fragmented care. If you have spent a year being handed between offices with no one coordinating, that is exactly the problem a membership is designed to solve.
Who should skip it
If you are broadly healthy, see a physician once or twice a year, and have a primary care doctor you like, a membership will sit unused. You would be paying an annual fee to avoid a handful of appointments you can already get. The better spend is knowing where to go when something goes wrong, and going there quickly.
The same applies if cost matters to your household budget. Concierge medicine is a premium product priced accordingly, and paying for a single urgent care visit when you need one is dramatically cheaper than paying for membership access you may not use.
What each option costs
Published concierge pricing at TrufaMED, with house call allowances included in the fee.
| Tier | Annual | Per quarter | Covers | House calls included |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VIP | $7,500 | $1,875 | One adult | 1 per year |
| Family+ | $24,000 | $6,000 | Two adults, two children | 2 per year |
| Signature | $60,000 | $15,000 | One member | Unlimited |
Without a membership, a physician to your door is priced per visit: $1,200 same day, $1,600 rapid response, and $2,500 after 11 PM, with scheduled visits quoted on request. House calls run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Telehealth is a flat $125 for Florida residents. Urgent care is billed through insurance or self pay, confirmed at registration.
Those numbers make the comparison concrete. A single late night house call costs roughly a third of a full year of VIP membership. If you expect to need that kind of visit once every few years, paying per visit is the rational choice. If you expect to need it several times a year, the membership stops looking expensive.
Where house calls fit
House calls confuse the comparison because both paths reach them. Anyone can request one without a membership, and members receive an allowance included in their fee. A physician arrives with portable diagnostics, performs a full assessment, writes prescriptions and arranges same day clinic follow up if the case needs imaging or labs that do not travel.
Daytime visits inside the standard service area are typically dispatched within two to four hours. That makes a house call doctor in Miami a reasonable answer for a sick child, an older parent who is difficult to move, or a hotel guest who would rather not cross the causeway. It is a delivery method for care, available to members and non members alike.
Using both without paying twice
The sensible pattern for most Miami households is simple. Use urgent care as the default for anything acute. Keep telehealth for the straightforward questions that do not require an examination. Consider a membership only after a year in which you can count the times fragmented access actually cost you something.
Members still use the clinic. Membership does not move you to a separate building or a different set of physicians. The same group of physicians treats urgent care patients, house call patients and members.
A short way to decide
Answer three questions. First, is the problem happening today? If yes, that is urgent care, regardless of what else you have. Second, over the past year, did lack of access to a physician cause you a real cost in time, stress or a missed diagnosis? If no, a membership will not pay for itself. Third, are you managing complexity that no single physician currently holds? If yes, that is the case for membership, and it is the strongest one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a concierge membership to be seen at TrufaMED?
No. Urgent care is open to everyone with no membership, no referral and no prior relationship. You can walk in or register ahead during opening hours, seven days a week. The clinical care is the same care members receive, delivered by the same physicians in the same accredited clinic. Membership changes access and continuity outside the clinic, and it changes nothing about the quality of a single visit.
Is a concierge doctor the same as a house call?
No. A house call is a single visit where a physician comes to your home or hotel, and anyone can request one by phone without a membership. A concierge membership is an ongoing relationship with a physician across the year, and each tier includes a set number of house calls in the fee. One is a delivery method, the other is a continuing arrangement.
How much does concierge medicine cost in Miami?
At TrufaMED there are three published tiers. VIP is $7,500 per year, or $1,875 per quarter, and covers one adult with one house call included. Family+ is $24,000 per year, or $6,000 per quarter, covering two adults and two children with two house calls included. Signature is $60,000 per year, or $15,000 per quarter, with unlimited house calls.
Does a membership replace my health insurance?
No. The membership fee covers access to your physician and the services described in the tier. It is separate from insurance, and it does not cover hospitalization, surgery, emergency department care, specialist bills or prescriptions. Members keep their health insurance. Think of the fee as paying for the relationship and availability, with insurance continuing to do everything it did before.
What does an urgent care visit cost compared to a membership?
An urgent care visit is billed through your insurance or as self pay, and the amount is confirmed at registration before you are seen. For someone who needs a few visits a year, that total sits far below any annual membership fee. Membership pricing makes sense on access and continuity across a full year, not on the cost of individual acute visits.
Can I keep my own primary care physician and still use urgent care?
Yes, and most patients do. Urgent care is designed to handle what happens between your regular appointments, then send records and a follow up plan back so your own physician stays informed. Using the clinic does not change your primary care relationship, does not require you to transfer anywhere, and involves no ongoing commitment of any kind.
How quickly can a physician reach my home?
Daytime house calls inside the standard service area are typically dispatched within two to four hours. Rapid response is available at a higher rate when the timing matters more, and after hours visits run past 11 PM with coverage 24 hours a day. Exact timing depends on location and current demand, and it is confirmed on the phone when you book.
Do concierge members pay extra for house calls?
Within their included allowance, no. VIP includes one house call per year at no per visit cost, Family+ includes two, and Signature includes unlimited visits. Beyond the included allowance, standard house call pricing applies. Add on services such as diagnostics, laboratory work, ultrasound and intravenous therapy are billed separately for both members and non members.
What are TrufaMED’s urgent care hours?
The clinic is open seven days a week at 9445 Harding Ave in Surfside. Hours are Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 9 PM, Saturday from 11 AM to 11 PM, and Sunday from 12 PM to 8 PM. House calls operate outside those hours, 24 hours a day, and are arranged by phone at (305) 537-6396 rather than through online booking.
Is telehealth an alternative to either option?
For some problems, yes. Telehealth is a flat $125 for Florida residents and works well for medication questions, follow up on a known issue, and symptoms that do not require an examination. It cannot deliver imaging, laboratory testing or a physical exam, so anything requiring hands or equipment routes back to the clinic or a house call.
Who are the physicians at TrufaMED?
Care is led by Dr. Uri Gedalia, MD, FACS, Chief Medical Officer, and Dr. Shane D. Naidoo, MD, Medical Director, who is board certified in emergency medicine. The group also includes Dr. Yuri Rodriguez Hernandez, MD and Dr. Gabriela Morales, MD in internal medicine, and Dr. Carlos Ramirez, MD in family medicine. The same physicians serve urgent care patients, house call patients and concierge members.
Can I use urgent care now and join a membership later?
Yes. There is no sequence to follow and no obligation created by a clinic visit. Many members start as urgent care patients, decide over time that they want continuity with a physician who knows them, and join afterwards. Others use the clinic for years and never join, which for most households is the appropriate outcome. Membership questions are answered by phone.
Where to go from here
If something is wrong today, go to urgent care. Register for an urgent care visit at 9445 Harding Ave in Surfside, or walk in during opening hours. For a straightforward question that does not need an examination and you are a Florida resident, book telehealth for a flat $125.
House calls and concierge membership are arranged by phone so the right option can be matched to your situation. Call (305) 537-6396 or message the clinic on WhatsApp at +1 (305) 842-9801. If urgent care is the honest answer for you, that is what you will be told.