www.google.com
If you have family, then prepared to get divorced or end up not knowing your kids then. Businesses on the side on top of a full time path job, be ready to work your ass off. Add on the stress of dealing with unhappy customers and employees, you may die early from a heart attack.
Yup everyone will look to try to nickel and dime you aka exploit you. It’s even worse in a sh*tty job market as was the case years ago. Some people are still in denial of how bad the job market was before Covid for years.
If you were billing $850K and paid <250K... that is absurd. There is no justification for that, but you did sign the employment agreement that allowed for this to happen. How did you come up with the 850 figure? Was it based on your calculated RVU/CPT? Were you privy to your employers contractual agreements with carriers? Maybe you brought in a lot more than 850K. I certainly hope things have gotten better for you because you sound like a rockstar coming out of residency/fellowship.
I think you are out of date as to what is a 1 percenter. In 2023, you have to make above $400K on average (above $500K as a family) to be considered a one percenter in most states. I don't know too many pathology jobs that would pay that, especially out of the gate.
I agree with you that a fair number of new graduates are not worth very much. I don't mind hiring new graduates at what they're worth who are well trained and can actually function as attendings with minimal handholding. But as we all know, that's not everyone and lately its more the rule than the exception. Are groups supposed to pay >$250K for a fresh grad who can't handle 30 cases/day and needs constant handholding and supplemental training at the expense of the group to function, loosely speaking? I can see this as a problem that's only going to get worse with time.Going back to what should be a decent salary for a fresh grad... what is a good number? To attain a certain income, is that newly-minted pathologist able to bill that much to cover their salary/overhead? I have limited data on my end when it comes to new hires that are fresh grads, so my data is all anecdotal. I would venture to say that you will seldom find a new grad who is worth >300K/year.
With constant reimbursement cuts, new insurance carriers who offer less than suboptimal fee schedules, looming potential reassignment of certain CPTs, etc... maybe 250K/year will be considered a very good salary in 5 years?
Bitcoin and Gamestop are so 2020. AI hype is also getting old. Now mental health is all the rage. Come up with new products. If the market can absorb things like weighted blankets for anxiety treatment, sky is the limit.
The content of this post, taken in it’s entirety, would give an absolute STROKE to a new p.p. pathologist from 1988 who did a “Rip Van Winkel” today. I am sure that few remaining in my/this/our field can even have an inkling of the deterioration. Kinda sad. maybe i’ve got dinosaur syndrome
It’s multifactorial. The training is definitely worse and going through medical school/residency/fellowship without ever having made an independent decision is pretty common, even at the big places.
Path residents are mostly foreign grads and the quality is subpar too according to a friend in academia. When I mean subpar, I mean people who have no passion for pathology.
'Passion' is way overrated. If you follow 'passion', you are more likely end up poor. I'm passionate about playing D&D and sipping mai tais, but nobody wants to pay me to do that.
I agree with developing multiple streams of income.
But aren’t taxes like 50%?
Agree this is the time to get a job in path. It wont last forever. Situate yourself into a nice practice where you enjoy the people you work with. Hopefully you won’t have to switch jobs like most pathologists before they find their final job.
If you are thinking about multiple streams of revenue then why even bother with pathology? It'd be better and easier just to live with less stress and more free time instead of chasing the dollar.
Yes, you are correct in everything you say. There are many many easier ways to get rich outside of pathology, and even outside of medicine. But yet, here we are.
To get rich outside pathology you got to start businesses like Webb says. Everyone wealthy I know or have met are business owners (1mil a year or up to 100 M net worth) but most people who are pathologists (at least the ones that I’ve met) don’t fall under that LADoc “entrepreneurial” hustler category.
Sorry 100-140 88305s in addition to other job demands.
It is for your typical slave path salary.
Thats my point. At the big labs there are generally no other demands
Agree. Generating 800-900K in revenue and getting paid 250-350K. Better to start you own lab or work in an in office lab (that’s my point) so that money gets put into your pocket versus Quest. Most pathologists aren’t entrepreneurial types unfortunately.
Are you talking global billing or just the professional component?
Every time I see the suggestion of starting your own practice/business I always wonder if this is a serious suggestion. How exactly do you get funding or the loans to start? How do you convince hospitals or other groups to even use your business?
As a point of clarification, there are many pathologists employed by Quest who work EXCLUSIVELY in hospital practice. Depending on how busy the path is with hospital generated cases, they may sign out cases from Quest’s outpatient business. In my case, I was solo at a ~185 bed community hospital. Due to the modest and generally straightforward nature of the work a shop like that generates, I did a significant number of Quest account’s out patient GI cases and a small amount of non GI surgical center stuff. My scenario was how the vast majority of surgical pathology cases in Florida were (?are now?) handled by Quest.
I think Quest is still performing M&As, but they aren't paying what they used to probably. If the group they are looking at is hospital-based, they won't give you much value. Quest is actually in danger of losing whatever contracts they had with certain HCA hospitals now that FPS is taking over from within. For that reason alone, trying to part ways with a hospital contract and all the good will you've created won't mean a whole lot to anyone. 1-1.5X EBITA? Now, if you had an outpatient lab with a decent local market share... totally different story.
Groups seem to be having issues hiring pathologists. I’ve seen jobs open for a year. Either there is actually a shortage of pathologists or there are a lot of crap pathologists out there looking for jobs.
Foreign grads, which make up a majority of grads, have no problem taking jobs in rural America. Do you know other countries pay docs like 4-8000$ A YEAR as a doctor?
Note the fall and country-themed decour of this ad. I guess this is the definition of 'go rural'.
Most decorative job ad Ive ever seen in Pathology lol.
Cost savings of paying a PA goes to you the pathologist!
It sounds like an employed position
