Frequently Asked Questions

Complete primary care, plus advanced diagnostics not covered by OHIP.

$2,850 a year, paid monthly at $237.50, per person, for Ontario residents with valid OHIP coverage. One price. There are no tiers, no upgrades, and nothing held back for a higher plan.

Your membership includes:

1. Access:
- 24/7 physician availability by text, call, or video
- Same-day virtual care for urgent matters
- Same-day in-office appointments
- A clinic without waiting rooms

2. Annual Executive Physical (3 to 4 hours):
- A panel of 75+ biomarkers
- Coronary artery calcium score (CT imaging)
- Carotid intima-media thickness ultrasound
- VO2max cardiopulmonary testing
- A 60-minute consultation with your physician

3. Private Specialist Network:
- Referrals to cardiology, endocrinology, dermatology, and other specialists within days
- Private specialist consultations included in your membership

4. Day-to-day Care:
- Prescription renewals, adjustments, and weekend refills
- Visits with our physicians for acute concerns such as strep throat, UTIs, and minor injuries
- Nutrition and exercise support
- Coordination of care across your providers
- Your full health record in one place, accessible to you

Everything OHIP already insures, and everything a hospital does.

Your insured care stays insured. It is billed to OHIP, not to you, and the membership never sits between you and it.

Outside that, the membership does not cover:
- Hospital care. Surgery, admission, inpatient management, and emergencies run through the public system
- Scan costs. Medically warranted imaging may be OHIP-covered. Preventative imaging you request is booked at private partner rates and passed through without markup
- Prescription medication. Your drug coverage works the way it does now

Our physicians coordinate with the hospital system when you need it. They do not replace it.

Yes, where the labs support it.

Prescribed by our physicians on the same basis as everything else here: objective lab values, a defined target, and repeat testing to confirm you reached it. Not a symptom questionnaire and a standing order.

For men who want a program built entirely around this, our sister clinic Mas Clinic is dedicated to it.

For most members, no. Our physicians serve as your family doctor.

Our physicians are licensed family physicians providing the full range of primary care: prescriptions, imaging requisitions, specialist referrals, acute illness visits, and chronic disease management.

The main difference is panel size. Each Plunge physician cares for around 500 patients, compared with 1,200-1,400 at a typical OHIP family practice. That allows for longer appointments and faster follow-up.

The waiting goes away, and the panel gets ten times deeper.

Public system
- 6 weeks to see your GP
- 8-12 months for a specialist referral
- 6-12 months for an MRI
- 10 minutes per appointment
- 8 biomarkers at your annual physical

Plunge, once doors open
- Same day to see your physician
- Days for a specialist, paid by the membership
- Days for imaging, at private partner rates with no markup
- 45 minutes per visit
- 75+ biomarkers

The last line is the one that matters. Waiting is an inconvenience you can plan around. A screening protocol built on eight markers cannot find what it never measures.

What is inside it. The structure is identical everywhere, and legally it has to be.

No membership in Ontario buys insured care. Yours is billed to OHIP here the way it is anywhere else. What a membership can cover is the uninsured half, and that is where clinics actually differ.

Ours covers:
- Root cause analysis. Working out why a marker moved, rather than filing it as abnormal and repeating it in a year
- Consulting time. The thinking, explaining, and planning that no insured billing code pays for
- The annual physical and the 75+ marker panel behind it
- Private specialist consultations, paid by the membership rather than passed to you
- Coordination across every provider you see, with your records in one place

One flat price, per person, no tiers. The panel is the easy part. The membership is built around the eleven months after it.

A standard Canadian physical checks CBC, electrolytes, creatinine, glucose, lipid panel (total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, triglycerides), TSH, and maybe HbA1c. That is 8-12 markers. It is a 1970s-era screening protocol.

We test 75+ markers, including:

Cardiovascular (the #1 killer):
- Apolipoprotein B: the actual atherogenic particle count (LDL-C misses 30-40% of high-risk patients)
- Lipoprotein(a): genetically determined, causes 1 in 6 heart attacks, almost never tested by GPs
- Coronary Artery Calcium Score: direct visualization of arterial plaque via CT (not a "risk estimate", actual disease)
- hs-CRP, IL-6, fibrinogen: inflammatory drivers of atherosclerosis

Metabolic:
- Fasting insulin + HOMA-IR: insulin resistance detection 10-15 years before diabetes diagnosis
- HbA1c: read against fasting insulin, not in isolation
- Adiponectin, leptin: adipose tissue dysfunction markers

Hormonal:
- Full thyroid panel (TSH, free T3, free T4, reverse T3, TPO/TG antibodies), not just TSH
- Diurnal cortisol mapping: HPA axis dysfunction detection
- DHEA-S, pregnenolone, full sex hormone panel

Nutritional & Methylation:
- RBC magnesium, zinc, selenium: intracellular status, not serum (which is useless for deficiency detection)
- Omega-3 index: membrane composition
- Homocysteine, B12, folate, methylmalonic acid: methylation pathway function

This is not a "wellness panel." This is the evidence-based biomarker set for early detection of cardiovascular disease, metabolic dysfunction, and cancer risk.

Because a standard lipid panel misses the two markers that predict risk best.

Apolipoprotein B (ApoB):
Every atherogenic lipoprotein particle contains exactly one ApoB molecule. ApoB is a direct measure of particle number, the causal driver of atherosclerosis. LDL-C measures cholesterol mass, not particles. You can have "normal" LDL-C (3.0 mmol/L) and dangerously elevated ApoB (>1.2 g/L). This is called "discordance" and occurs in 30-40% of patients, whose standard cholesterol panel reads as normal.

The European Atherosclerosis Society and Canadian Cardiovascular Society both recommend ApoB measurement.

Lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)]:
Lp(a) is genetically determined. You cannot change it with diet or statins. Elevated Lp(a) (>125 nmol/L, reported as >50 mg/dL in US units) causes approximately 1 in 6 heart attacks and is one of the strongest independent risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The 2019 ESC/EAS guidelines recommend measuring it once in every adult's lifetime.

If your doctor already orders these, keep them.
OHIP has covered ApoB since 2021 and added Lp(a) in April 2026. A physician ordering both is ahead of most. That counts.

The number is the easy part. What follows is where the public system runs out of room:
- Labs flag ApoB against a population reference range near 1.2 g/L. The risk target is below 0.7, and below 0.65 with existing plaque. A result inside the reference range reads as "normal" on the report and is not.
- Lp(a) does not move with diet or statins. Its only use is changing how aggressively everything else gets treated. That requires a treat-to-target plan and repeat testing every 12 weeks.
- Two markers are two markers. ApoB and Lp(a) sit alongside 75+ others, a calcium score, and a carotid ultrasound that show plaque directly rather than estimating it.

Our physicians order both for every member, then act on the result.

It is a CT scan that directly visualizes plaque in your coronary arteries. Not a risk estimate. Actual disease.

Traditional risk calculators (Framingham, ASCVD) estimate your 10-year probability of a cardiac event based on age, blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking, diabetes. They are population statistics applied to you as an individual. They estimate. They do not measure. In contemporary cohorts they overestimate risk on average, and they routinely sort people who already have plaque into low-risk categories.

A CAC score shows you what is actually in your arteries:
- CAC = 0: Very low risk. No detectable calcified plaque. 10-year event rate <1%.
- CAC = 1-99: Mild plaque. You have coronary artery disease. Aggressive risk factor modification indicated.
- CAC = 100-399: Moderate plaque. High risk. Statin therapy, lifestyle intervention, possible advanced imaging.
- CAC ≥400: Extensive plaque. Very high risk. May warrant stress testing, cardiology referral, intensive management.

50% of first heart attacks occur in people deemed "low risk" by traditional calculators. Many of them would have had detectable CAC years earlier.

The scan takes 10 minutes, uses minimal radiation (~1 mSv, equivalent to a mammogram), costs ~$150-300. We include it in your annual assessment.

Measurable biomarker changes and early disease detection.

We do not sell "feeling better." We sell quantified risk reduction to patients that are active in their quest for optimum health:

Detection:
- In asymptomatic executive physical populations, 8-15% have clinically significant findings requiring intervention (occult malignancy, significant CAC, undiagnosed arrhythmia, severe metabolic dysfunction). These are people who "felt fine."
- Elevated Lp(a) is found in ~20% of patients. Most have never been tested.
- Insulin resistance (elevated fasting insulin, HOMA-IR >2.5) is present in 30-40% of "metabolically healthy" patients. This precedes diabetes by 10-15 years.

Intervention:
- ApoB reduction to <0.7 g/L (or <0.65 g/L for high-risk) using lipid-lowering therapy where indicated
- CAC progression tracking to monitor plaque stability
- Insulin sensitization protocols (carbohydrate modulation, time-restricted eating, pharmacotherapy where appropriate)
- Inflammatory marker reduction (hs-CRP <1.0 mg/L target)
- Hormonal optimization based on objective lab values, not symptoms alone

The goal is not to make you "feel optimized." The goal is to identify and mitigate the pathophysiological processes that cause heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and cancer, years before they would be detected by symptom-driven conventional care.

Same day, virtual or in-office. That is the standard we open with.

We cap our patient panel at 500 per physician (vs. 1,200-1,400 for a typical family doctor). That ratio is the structural change that makes everything below possible.

At 500 patients, your physician can:
- Spend 45 minutes per visit (not 10)
- Respond to messages within hours (not days)
- Know your history without reading your chart for the first time during the appointment
- Actually think about your case between visits

There are no waiting rooms in this model because we do not overbook. Your 10:00 AM appointment starts at 10:00 AM.

We book it within days. We pay for it.

In the public system, you wait 8-12+ months for a specialist. That is not a healthcare system. That is a rationing system.

We maintain a private specialist network in the Toronto area. When you need a cardiologist, endocrinologist, dermatologist, rheumatologist, or other specialist:
1. We send the referral with complete records (not a one-line fax)
2. We book the appointment within days, not months
3. We pay for the private consultation as part of your membership

You do not navigate the system. We bypass it.

We coordinate it immediately. You skip the 6-12 month OHIP queue.

When you need imaging, we:
- Write the requisition
- Book the scan with private imaging partners (usually within 1-2 weeks)
- Review the results with you directly

The scan cost itself varies:
- MRI: $600-$2,500+ depending on body part
- CT: $800-$2,800+
- Ultrasound: $200-$500+

This is a pass-through cost to you. We do not mark it up. What you are buying is the absence of a 6-12 month wait for "elective" imaging that might show you have cancer.

The waitlist. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing.

Plunge has not opened. There is no card to enter and no deposit to place. Joining the waitlist reserves your position for the first intake and nothing more.

Everything on this site describes the clinic we open with, inside Button Health in downtown Toronto. Until the doors are open, read it as our commitment, not our track record. We will give you a launch date when we have one. Not before.

Yes. Plunge is structured to operate fully within the Canada Health Act.

The Canada Health Act prohibits charging for "medically necessary" services covered by provincial health insurance. It does not prohibit parallel private services for:
- Enhanced diagnostics not covered by OHIP/AHCIP (e.g., advanced biomarker panels, CAC scoring)
- Speed and access (reduced wait times)
- Extended physician time
- Private specialist consultations
- Concierge-style availability

Plunge is a parallel private membership service.

Yes. For business owners, this is usually 100% tax-efficient.

If you have a Private Health Services Plan (PHSP) or Health Spending Account through your corporation or employer, the medical services portion of your membership is usually an eligible expense. We provide itemized medical receipts.

Consult your accountant for specifics, but for most incorporated professionals (physicians, lawyers, consultants, business owners), Plunge membership is a deductible corporate health expense.

Downtown Toronto, inside Button Health.

Plunge launches as a clinic-in-clinic within Button Health in downtown Toronto, with a dedicated location to follow. Your annual physical and in-person visits happen there. Most ongoing care (messaging, prescriptions, follow-ups, sick visits) is handled virtually, which is faster for you anyway.

Blood collection is available through Dynacare and LifeLabs sites across the GTA. Specialized imaging (CAC, VO2max, etc.) is scheduled at our partner facilities in Toronto. We coordinate the logistics.

Application only. We cap enrollment to preserve access.

We do not have unlimited capacity. The business model depends on maintaining a 500:1 patient-to-physician ratio. The first intake is 100 members, filled from the waitlist in order. When panels are full, we close enrollment until capacity opens.

Sign up to the waitlist. We will confirm availability in Toronto and schedule an introductory call.