The next step

Firmly established in the London market, Medpoint Health Care Centre takes its unique brand of executive healthcare to the GTA

Photo: Medpoint Health Care Centre founders Dr. Sylvia Murchison and Alex Hanham

WHEN LONDON’S MEDPOINT Health Care Centre ­launched 18 years ago, the concept of executive healthcare, although around for decades, was just beginning to gain a foothold in Canada. For a generation of Canadians who had grown up only knowing public healthcare, the ­private fringes of the sector could be a bit puzzling.

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But in today’s healthcare climate, with a population that is simultaneously growing and aging, executive healthcare no longer scans as unusual to a lot of people. With four in ten doctors being 60 years or older, and the country losing doctors to retirement faster than it can graduate them into the workforce, demand for executive healthcare services is growing. The healthcare system is strained, limiting its capacity to serve demand for nice-to-haves — things like preventative medicals, early screening for diseases or specialized services like VO2max or aerobic threshold tests.

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“[David Foot’s] Boom, Bust & Echo predicted this 30 years ago,” says Alex Hanham, who co-founded Medpoint along with his wife, Dr. Sylvia Murchison, in 2007. “Everyone knew that demand for healthcare was going to increase exponentially as the Baby Boomers got into their 50s, 60s and 70s; what they didn’t realize or account for was that the doctors, the nurses, the abdominal ultrasound techs themselves are Baby Boomers.”

That strain on the medical system, in a nutshell, is the material foundation on which the executive healthcare industry has grown. And it has allowed Medpoint to carve out a space for itself as the biggest executive healthcare player in the region, with 38 doctors, comprising 10 family docs and 28 specialists, plus an “exceptional group of personal trainers” who work with patients on an ongoing basis, says Hanham.

Now, nearly 20 years after founding the company (including buying back Medpoint in 2020 after selling it two years earlier), Hanham and Murchison are expanding with a new location in Burlington, setting their sights firmly on the GTA market.

“We’re going to be very centrally located for the Burlington market and for the Golden Horseshoe market,” Hanham explains. “We’re already pulling people from Toronto to London, but this will make it a lot easier — we’ll be 45 minutes outside of Toronto, but we’ll also be accessible to people in Niagara, Hamilton, Stoney Creek, Oakville, Guelph and Kitchener. It’s a well-positioned space.”

Medpoint has always aligned itself to be somewhat less reliant on the corporate market than its competitors, with a membership model targetting upper-middle-class individuals. In Burlington, that will probably shift somewhat, with Hanham expecting the corporate market to play a bigger role. “We’re finding is a lot of companies that have executive health programs with our competitors are starting to feel the pinch on their price point,” he says.

Whereas many executive healthcare services charge $4,400 or more for a three- to five-hour medical, Medpoint’s prices run from around $1,400 to $2,400, with annual memberships ranging from $125 to $283 per month. “They might think, ‘Well, we can go two for one if we go to Medpoint, as long as the quality is the same.’”

Even for a company nearing two decades of operation, the move to Burlington will be a big jump. For one, the ­market is just that much bigger. “I’m going to be pulling on an ­advertising range of 10 million people; in London, we have 500,000 to 600,000,” Hanham says.

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But it’s an operational challenge that Hanham is keen to take on. “I’m hoping within a year we’ll be as busy in Burlington, as far as executive medicals, as we are here in London,” he says. “I think the market is definitely looking for an alternative and better price point, and the feedback we’re getting from corporate clients we’re talking to is all very positive.”

It is, in their grand vision for Medpoint, a first step into a much larger future — one that seems to be getting closer and closer on the horizon.

“I’m very, very confident that Burlington will be a success, and our goal is six locations within the next 10 years,” Hanham says. “We’ll be looking at other markets close by, and if it makes sense, then we’re going to open it.” Kieran Delamont