Can you give me a rough price and turnaround time?
Price is easy: $49, charged only after you approve an appointment that beats your current date by at least a week, and nothing if we can't. Turnaround has two parts. We text you within one business day with what we found. The appointment date itself depends on your specialty, insurance, zip code, and referral, so that number is a phone call.
That's the honest short answer to the question we get most, usually as a one line email from someone holding a dermatology or GI referral with a date two months out. Here's the longer version: what the earlier appointment costs against the other ways to get one, what actually decides how fast it happens around Baltimore and DC, and what to have ready so the call takes five minutes.
How much does it cost to get an earlier dermatology or GI appointment?
Between $0 and a few thousand dollars, depending on who does the calling. The price of the visit itself doesn't change; you're paying for the phone work, or doing it yourself.
| How you get the earlier date | What it costs | What you give up |
|---|---|---|
| Call the practices yourself | $0 | Hours on hold across several offices, usually during your own work day, and no way to be on every cancellation list at once |
| Free booking sites | $0 | Only practices that pay to list, which around here is a minority; the soonest slot shown is rarely the soonest slot that exists |
| Flat fee appointment concierge | $25 to $100 per booking; ours is $49 | Nothing if the fee is charged on success. Ours is, and it's waived when we can't beat your date by a week |
| Private patient advocate | $75 to $200 an hour | Built for a complex diagnosis across several doctors, so you pay for scope you don't need on one booking |
| Concierge medicine membership | $2,000 to $5,000 a year | A retainer primary care doctor; your specialist referral often still waits in the normal line |
If you're comparing services, the sorting questions are in how to choose an appointment concierge in Baltimore and DC. And if the price you're really asking about is the visit itself, the biopsy, the GI consult, the colonoscopy, that's covered with real self pay numbers in what a specialist visit costs in Maryland.
How fast can you actually get me in?
Nobody who's honest can promise a date before making the calls, because nobody outside the practice controls its calendar. What we can tell you is what decides the answer, in the order it matters:
- The specialty and the visit type. A new patient dermatology skin check and a GI consult are office visits, which open up through cancellations every week. A colonoscopy or an endoscopy needs a procedure room, prep instructions, and often a consult first, so it moves in bigger steps. Our piece on why a colonoscopy takes months to schedule in Maryland walks through that chain.
- Your reason for the visit. A changing mole, rectal bleeding, or trouble swallowing gets triaged ahead of a routine skin check or a mild reflux follow up at most practices. Say the real reason when you call. It's the single biggest lever.
- Your insurance. CareFirst PPO, Aetna, and traditional Medicare open the most doors. Kaiser and Medicaid HMO plans narrow the list of practices we can call to the ones in your network, which usually lengthens the wait.
- Your radius. A Columbia patient willing to drive to Towson, Silver Spring, or Rockville has three to four times the calendar of one who'll only see the practice nearest home. The earlier slots are usually at independent practices and endoscopy centers in the suburbs, not the big hospital systems' central lines.
- Whether the referral has arrived. A slot we find gets released again if the practice doesn't have your referral and records within a day or two. Have the referring office fax it before we start calling.
- Your flexibility. Weekday mornings, a different provider in the same practice, and a spot on the cancellation list are where most of the week or more we save comes from.
What's typical around Baltimore and DC right now?
Dermatology waits in this region are shorter than the national picture on average, and longer than that average at the practices most people call first. The last multi city survey by AMN Healthcare, in 2022, put the national average new patient dermatology wait at 34.5 days, and the same survey's Washington, D.C. figure was 12 days, among the shortest of the 15 metros checked. National surveys of physician offices in 2025 have that average drifting up toward 36 days. Academic medical centers run longer; a secret shopper study across U.S. academic dermatology departments found waits well beyond the community practice numbers.
The averages hide the spread, which is the whole point of calling around. From the calls we make daily, this is the general shape:
| Situation | Typical first offered date | Where the earlier slots usually are |
|---|---|---|
| Routine derm skin check, hospital system practice, Baltimore or DC | Several weeks to a few months | Independent derm practices in Columbia, Towson, Silver Spring; a physician assistant slot at the same practice |
| Derm visit for a changing mole or a new lesion | Days to a few weeks when the reason is stated | Triage slots and cancellation lists at the practice you already called |
| GI consult for reflux, IBS, or bowel changes | Several weeks to a couple of months | Suburban GI groups with their own endoscopy centers |
| Screening colonoscopy | Two to four months at many practices | Direct scheduling programs for average risk patients, ambulatory endoscopy centers |
Read those as the shape of the market, not a quote. Two people with the same referral in the same zip code can get dates a month apart because one has a PPO and a car and the other has an HMO and a bus schedule.
Why we won't email you a date before we call
Because a date we haven't confirmed with a practice is a guess dressed up as a promise, and you'd make plans around it. Any service that answers "how fast" with a specific number before knowing your insurance, your zip, and your reason for the visit is telling you what you want to hear. What we'll do instead is take five minutes on the phone, tell you straight whether your case is one we usually beat by a week or more, and then go make the calls. Every referral is different; call for a same day read on yours.
What to have ready so the call is short
- The specialty and the reason on the referral, in plain words.
- Your insurance card, front and back, and whether the plan is PPO, HMO, or Medicare.
- The date you're currently holding, and the practice that gave it to you.
- Your zip code and how far you'll drive.
- Days and times you can't do, and whether you'll take a different provider at the same practice.
One honest exclusion: if your current date is under two weeks out, keep it and skip us. Paying $49 to save a few days is bad math, and we'll say so on the call.
$49, and only if it works. Tell us your insurance, your zip code, and the date you're stuck with. We call the practices in your range, chase the cancellation lists, and text you the earliest confirmed option. Approve it and we book it in your name. If we can't beat your current date by at least a week, you pay nothing.
More reading: our articles page covers wait times, costs, and scheduling tactics for specialists around Baltimore and DC.