A company called Forward is launching a health subscription service of sorts in San Francisco, with the idea to change how patients approach going to the doctor. For a $149 monthly fee, the company will accept you as many times as needed in its high-tech medical clinic to provide help with things like high cholesterol, a pap smear, or a vaccine for an upcoming overseas trip. Also, the startup offers wearable gadgets and a smartphone app to help gather your health data while at home, as an addition to the data collected at the clinic. Furthermore, you will be able to use that app to message a doctor and send your most up-to-date health data for analysis.

For one reason or the other, Forward does NOT accept health insurance and will not “work” for all your “medical needs,” surgeries and many medical specialties being among them. Nevertheless, this kind of a “concierge medicine approach” could be appealing in the tech-savvy Bay area where many folks won’t have problems paying for the comfort Forward provides, all while keeping their existing insurance.

The startup will also give away some free memberships to those who can’t pay for its services, which we see as a nice add-on to the 21st century clinic.

We dig the concept but can’t see it flying all across the U.S. Sure, the preventive medicine is much cheaper than its curative counterpart, but it’s also a tougher to sell to the majority of population. Otherwise, obesity wouldn’t be the issue…