WHY WE BUILT TEJOMED
Most of us grew up with a family doctor who knew us. We wanted one back.
If you had one, you know what we mean. If you didn’t, this is what it feels like. TejoMed is a membership-based family medicine clinic, founded in Lisbon in 2023: one dedicated doctor who knows you, a patient list kept small on purpose, and a care team you can reach. In person in Lisbon, by video wherever you are.
No commitment. A real person replies within one business day.
Volume medicine vs. relationship medicine.
Volume medicine is what most of us know. A doctor is responsible for thousands of patients and is paid by the visit, so the day is built around seeing as many people as possible: short appointments, long waits between them, often a different face each time. It is not a failure of the doctors. It is arithmetic, and it is the same in most of the world.
Relationship medicine is the older idea, and the one that has been growing again for thirty years. A doctor keeps a small list, a few hundred people rather than thousands, and members pay a yearly fee so it can stay that way. The doctor has the time to know you, the freedom to investigate, and a reason to follow up.
Both kinds can have excellent doctors.
Only one gives them time.
RELATIONSHIP MEDICINE
The reason it spread is simple. It lets doctors practise the way they imagined when they went to medical school, and it lets patients have a doctor who knows them. TejoMed brought it to Portugal in 2023.
The first membership-based practice opens in Seattle. A handful of doctors, a few hundred families.
Doctors practising this way in the US today, up from fewer than 150 practices counted by a government review in 2004.
Of patients at US membership practices who said they would recommend it to a friend, in a 2015 survey of 18,000 people.
These numbers describe the model in the US, not TejoMed. Our own are further down the page: 5.0 on Google across 105 reviews.
Sources: US Government Accountability Office report on concierge care, 2005 · NextMD census of US concierge physicians, June 2026 · Concierge Choice member survey, 2015, reported in Physicians Practice.
We were patients before we were founders. Tyler moved to Portugal in 2020 and loved almost everything about it. The exception was finding a doctor. Seeing a great one often meant a long wait. The quick option was often a rushed fifteen minutes with someone who didn’t know him, and rarely a follow-up. Not every time. But often enough that every visit felt like starting from zero.
His parents in the US had a concierge doctor. They told him it was the best care they had ever had, and to find one in Lisbon. There wasn’t one. So, with Inês, he built it.
We had built companies before. We built this one because we wanted it to exist, for ourselves and for the people we care about. That is still the test for every decision we make.
Tyler Gordon
CO-FOUNDER & CEO
American, in Portugal since 2020. Before TejoMed he built a real estate technology company that grew to serve 10% of the US market, and helped scale a software consultancy to 200 people, building for Fortune 500 companies and four startups that were later acquired.
LinkedIn ↗
Inês Santos Silva
CO-FOUNDER & COO
Portuguese, and one of the people who built Lisbon’s startup scene. Co-founder of Portuguese Women in Tech and of Startup Pirates, a pre-accelerator that ran in 20 countries. She has advised the Portuguese government on startup policy and invests in women’s health research.
LinkedIn ↗
A few hundred
patients per doctor. Not thousands.
Every doctor’s list is capped on purpose. When it is full, it is full.
6 to 8
visits a day. Not thirty.
The first visit is long enough to start properly. Follow-ups are as long as they need to be.
A team
around every doctor.
Nurses, assistant physicians and coordinators alongside them, so your doctor’s time goes to medicine.
No typing
while you talk.
An AI scribe writes the notes during the visit, so your doctor’s attention stays in the room and their evenings stay their own. It is the difference between being heard and being logged.
The best tools
and AI on the market.
We are not a technology company, but we use the best clinical software and AI we can find, with your labs, wearables and history in one view. Your doctor sees the whole picture and spends the time on you, not on screens.
A life
outside the clinic.
Predictable hours, evenings and weekends. We would rather you saw a rested doctor. That is the design, not a perk.
A TEJOMED DOCTOR, IN THEIR SECOND YEAR
The doctors we hire were already practising this way, on their own time and usually unpaid for it. Here it is the job.
Are you one of them? We’re hiring →
THE APPOINTMENT
Your first visit is long on purpose. Not because there is a script to get through, but because your doctor is going to know you for years and wants to start properly: your history, your family’s, the thing you almost didn’t mention. After that, appointments are as long as they need to be, with the same doctor every time, in the room or by video.
That is possible because every TejoMed doctor looks after a few hundred members, not thousands. When a list is full, it is full.
“My doctor Ares had the whole 90 minutes for me.”
Sasha Lukavchenko · Google review
Meet the doctors →
Every TejoMed doctor is licensed with the Ordem dos Médicos, fluent in English and Portuguese, and looks after a few hundred members rather than thousands. They were already this kind of doctor. Here, the schedule finally gives them the time for it.
Most of what your doctor does for you doesn’t need a building: video visits, messages, results, prescriptions, follow-up. Members in Porto, the Algarve and beyond have the same doctor, with labs and in-person care arranged near them.
When you do need to be seen in person, the clinic is at Praça da Alegria 66, 3º, 1250-004 Lisboa, a short walk from Avenida da Liberdade.
Open in Google Maps ↗
Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 18:00.
Porto and Algarve clinics are on the way.
If anything here is unclear, ask us on the call.
We would rather you checked.
Epopeia Matinal, Unipessoal LDA · NIPC 517869993
Registered with the ERS (Entidade Reguladora da Saúde), registration no. 182003
Dr. Luísa Batista, Ordem dos Médicos no. 56610
2023, Lisbon
Praça da Alegria 66, 3º, 1250-004 Lisboa
Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 18:00
English and Portuguese with every doctor. Spanish with selected doctors.
TejoMed is not insurance. It works alongside the SNS and private plans.
Labs, imaging and specialist visits are billed separately and are often reimbursable.
TejoMed is not an emergency service. In an emergency, call 112.
We reply within one business day. Prefer to call?
+351 21 020 0900