A new practice with immediate availability. The panel is open, appointments are same-day or next-day, and no referral is needed — you do not need permission from an insurer or another doctor to be seen here. Walk-in clinic hours are Tuesday through Thursday, noon to 8 pm, and Saturday, 9 am to 5 pm, and a virtual doctor consultation by video is available anywhere in California.

Medicine without the middleman

Dr. Phil Zhou, DO is a cash-only medical practice built for busy professionals, business owners, parents, and anyone who is tired of fighting for their own healthcare. You pay one clear price, you see the doctor, and you leave knowing exactly what it cost.

I do not bill insurance. That single decision removes the referral and prior authorization you would otherwise need just to see a physician for specialty care, the coding games, the surprise bills six weeks later, and the seven-minute visit. What is left is the part that actually helps you get better: time with your physician.

Before medicine, I worked at Amazon. What stuck with me was how seriously they took speed and convenience — how much work went into removing small frictions most businesses never notice. Healthcare runs the other way. The friction is the system.

I am building the other version of that for my own community. You are a patient, and you are also a customer, and there is no good reason those should feel like different things. Most prescription refills here take one text message — no portal, no phone tree, no appointment to ask for something routine. (Membership required.)

Why paying cash works in your favor

• Appointments in days, not weeks. Same-day and next-day visits are normal here, because the schedule is not packed to meet billing targets.
• A treatment plan that keeps moving. No waiting on a referral, an approval, or a follow-up slot three months out just to change a dose. If something is not working, we change it this week.
• A lot gets done without a visit. Refills, dose adjustments, lab results, a photo of a rash, a quick “is this normal?” — handled by text, with no appointment and no copay. (Membership.)
• Call or text your doctor directly — not AI, not a call center, not outsourced to a third party. I respond within a few hours at most.
• No referral needed — including for neurology-trained care for headaches, sleep, and nerve pain.
• Time to cover everything. Visits run as long as they need to, and there is no “one problem per visit” rule.
• A price you know up front — $150 a visit or $99 a month. No deductible math, no coding, no bill six weeks later.
• Your doctor stays your doctor when your insurance changes — new job, new plan, or no plan at all.
• More privacy. My visits are not billed to an insurer, so no diagnosis codes from them land in a claims database.

Your insurance still covers your medications and tests. I send prescriptions to your pharmacy and order labs and imaging through your plan, the same as any doctor — or, when my cash price is lower than your copay, you can pay that instead. A few very expensive medications and procedures, such as Botox for chronic migraine, still need your insurance’s prior authorization; when they do, I handle it with your plan.

A typical insurance-based office, and here

	Typical insurance-based office	Here
Getting an appointment	About a month — a 31-day average wait across 15 large U.S. metro areas, 23.5 days for family medicine1	Usually the same day or the next
Time with the doctor	About 18 minutes, on average2	As long as it takes — no “one problem per visit” rule
Who answers	Often a front desk, a phone tree, or a patient portal	Me, on my cell — I respond within a few hours at most
Seeing a specialist	Often needs a referral or a prior authorization	No referral needed, including for neurology care
Adjusting a medication	Often waits for the next appointment	Usually one text
Attitude toward pain	Often squeezed into the end of a short visit, or handed off with a referral — the billing system does not reward the time pain takes	A priority. Getting your pain under control is central to good care, and to good service
What you pay	Until you meet your deductible, the full in-network rate comes out of your pocket — the premium you pay each month does not lower it. Then copays, and a bill that can arrive weeks later. How deductibles work	$150 a visit or $99 a month, known before you come in

Concierge-style access, for $99 a month. Concierge practices commonly charge $2,000 to $5,000 a year for this kind of access³, and many still bill your insurance on top. Here it is $99 a month — $1,188 a year — and nothing is billed to insurance. ³ Fortune, 2024.

Why patients choose Dr. Zhou

What a visit here is like

What patients and colleagues say

5.0 stars on Google, Zocdoc and Yelp. A few, word for word:

What I do

Walk-ins and everyday problems are seen too — colds, infections, minor injuries, physicals. What that looks like.

Ready when you are

Call or text (562) 575-6816 to book a visit, or join as a VIP member and have a doctor in your corner every day of the year.