“n of 1 medicine is for people who want to make a major transformation in their health.”
If you’re wondering how to get your health in order (and stop waiting 2 months to get an appointment), you may be wondering if a health concierge is right for you, or if maybe you should work with a health coach. And some people on health podcasts are talking about how they want n of 1 medicine--what is that anyway?
Concierge medicine is luxury membership medicine, direct primary care with a white-glove touch. You pay a monthly fee in exchange for a health concierge physician to be available to you 24/7 by text, phone, or video in case you get sick or have an injury.
Concierge doctors typically maintain much smaller patient panels than traditional primary care so they can devote more time to each patient in appointments and maintain that 24/7 availability. It’s usually easier to get an appointment to see them same-day or for them to make a house call for you.
Some concierge medicine practices are known for arranging VIP treatment at local hospitals and prestigious clinics. For example, in the case of an accident or emergency,their orthopedic surgeon may be called in from home to visit you in the ER (for a hefty hourly fee to you).
Health coaching is also typically membership-based, though often on a shorter time scale than the typical annual memberships for a concierge doctor. Health coaching is generally led by a coach rather than an MD. Health coaches may be certified by the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching.
Health coaches help you identify and overcome barriers to improving your health. For example, if your doctors prescribed you several pamphlets worth of exercises, and low-glycemic meals even though your spouse and kids don’t want to eat them and the recipes don’t make sense to you, and a CPAP machine nightly even though you travel five days a week…we know it’s not realistic. So does your health coach.
Health coaches help you set realistic goals and identify the highest-impact steps you can take to reach those goals. They try to make managing your health not become a second job.
If you don’t need a doctor’s advice day-to-day but you need tactical advice and accountability to improve your physical activity, nutrition, sleep, or stress management, a health coach may be the right choice for you.
A health coach can help you stay motivated and, by checking in with you regularly by text, phone, email, or in-person meetings, head off obstacles that could derail you proactively.
In a clinical trial, n is the number of people a treatment is tested in. When you’re testing a treatment, you want a big n so you can see more of the possible responses and side effects, because people can respond differently.
When you try to apply study results and general medical guidelines to your case, you quickly start to see how all patients are not the same. A treatment that works for 80% of people may not work for you. Between two treatments that work “equally”–meaning equally on average in a few hundred patients–one may work way better for you, or have fewer or easier to tolerate side effects.
In real life, when you try a treatment, you are always an n of 1.
An n of 1 study is a clinical research approach where a single patient is the entire focus of the investigation. In n of 1 medicine, your own response to treatment is the central consideration. So are your goals for treatment. Whether you have heart failure and want to keep traveling, or you have Parkinson’s and want to be able to keep playing the guitar until medical science itself reaches its limit, the goals of n of 1 medicine are your goals.
Potential treatments are investigated by doing a deep dive into the literature on your condition, sometimes consulting the authors themselves, always consulting specialists with expertise in your specific condition–not just brain cancer, but glioblastoma in pregnant women, treated surgically; not just Ehlers-Danlos, but Ehlers-Danlos in dancers; not just bowel cancers, but bowel cancers in men over 70.
n of 1 medicine does not stop with a prescription, or end when the hospital lets you go home after surgery. Your doctor–the one quarterbacking your treatment for all the doctors that may be involved–follows up with you throughout your treatment to make sure it’s working, and that you aren’t getting concerning side effects, and to answer questions for you about whether what you’re experiencing is normal or a sign that you should change something in your treatment.
Carte Medical is a membership medicine practice that makes your treatment plan personal and actionable with n of 1 medicine. We combine the latest medical knowledge on your condition with day-to-day tactical support that gets things done.
To meet not just your treatment goals but your life goals, we’ll learn what your priorities and non-negotiables are in a way no doctor may have asked you about before.
We pinpoint the simple things that can make a big impact, like us driving you to a medical equipment store, ordering blood draws to come to your home, or bringing a personal chef in to help for a few weeks. We’ll find the little steps that can be the difference between reaching your highest goals and never getting started.
This may involve us offering you personalized primary care, but even if you aren’t local to us in Tyson’s Corner, the Bay Area, or New York, our team of vetted specialists covers all 50 states. We help you find the right doctor, clinic, or research group for your surgery, procedure, or ongoing treatment, wherever you are.
We schedule appointments for you promptly with any specialist or doctor you need to see, talk personally to the experts involved to make sure context on your situation isn’t lost, and hold everyone accountable to keep momentum strong.
While our n of 1 approach has previously only been available to our membership clients, we're excited to announce that starting January 5, 2026, we’re offering a new brief intensive package sized for one big medical decision you’re facing: Critical Decision Medicine
Join the waitlist to be notified when Critical Decision Medicine spots become available, and to find out how you can get one of 5 half price preview slots in December before the formal launch in January.
