Will Physician Salaries continue to go down?

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nir1009

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Do you guys think physician salaries will continue to go down in the next 10-15 years (Family Practice & Specialties)?
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I think they might drop a little more but at some point, it will have to stop.

After all, who would bust their hump for 4 years in premed, do the same in med school (while emerging on average with $100K in loans), and then slave away at residency all to do a job with subpar pay?

Yes, doctors are supposed to do the job with their patients in mind. But if the pay gets to be too low, I think fewer people will subject themselves to the long, rigorous path of becoming a doctor.
 
I sure hope not. I'm broke to start off with. :(
 
CANES2006 said:
I sure hope not. I'm broke to start off with. :(
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Join the club! If only I could get a mortgage for the same amount of my student loans!! Then I could have a REALLY nice house :laugh: !
 
there are plans to cut medicare by 16% over the next ten years. And medicare represents half of payments, so the average physician stands to loose 8% of income. Also, insurance companies will continue to squeeze us, as will hospitals. While physicians are ultimatly driven by the patient (how many doc's won't see a patient if they are in real trouble and can't pay) everyone else looks at dollars, and so we are the first to get screwed. Not to mention the ones who make policy are lawyers (there are few physicians in congress). And while new physicians may decrease (med school apps are down again I beleive) all of us already here are stuck (find another job with 200K in debt) So everyone should beleive that there is a war on out there so make sure you're all aware of the issues facing physicians, become a member in physician advocacy groups and make a difference. Its your livelihood we're dealing with here. Don't look for public sympathy either. Whats the first thing you hear when you say your going to be a doctor? 'Oh your gonna be loaded some day!' yeah right. Sure doctors still live relatively comfortably compared to the average american, but the days of rich doctors are over unless you find extra-medical income.
 
cash only practices... we need to stop thinking that the government and insurance companies are our only source of income...we hold the purse strings and don't even know it...
 
nir1009 said:
Do you guys think physician salaries will continue to go down in the next 10-15 years (Family Practice & Specialties)?
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As I understand it (and I am no expert), Medicare sets the standards for reimbursement. What Medicare chooses to pay, most private insurance companies soon adopt as their policy. The seemingly random rates of reimbursement for particular visits/procedures was determined by a Medicare committee in the 80s and has been adjusted over the years. Reimbursement was scheduled to be cut again by ~5% this year, but didn't pass at the last minute. Pressure on salaries will most certainly be downward in the future with healthcare spending in the crosshairs of Congress, even more so with the boomers getting old. According to my FP rotation, FPs and PCPs have responded by doing more in office procedures and seeing more patients. I am not predicting doom, but in my not so expert opinion, have trouble seeing how PCP salaries will increase short of procedures/testing in their offices.
 
dr_almondjoy_do said:
cash only practices... we need to stop thinking that the government and insurance companies are our only source of income...we hold the purse strings and don't even know it...
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Yep, then docs will be like dentists. I just paid my dentist $260 for about 15 minutes work.
 
It seems to me that as a GP, you really need to diversify the intraoffice procedures in your practice for reimbursement. Things like spirometry, EKG interpretations, removal of skin lesions, OMT (if applicable), etc. are billable procedures and in some cases (as in OMT) require minimal capital investment on equipment.
 
My guess is more places that can get away with not accepting medicare will do so. In certain areas, this wouldn't be possible because the entire patient population uses medicare. Evetually doctors will leave these areas that are already less desirable. Then what?
The government can decide what they want to reimburse, but doctors can choose who they want to see. At some point, there will be a stalemate, kind of like there already is in certain areas with astronomical malpractice insurance. What will happen in these cases, I don't know. I do suggest that everyone get involved by at least joining the AMA. Our membership fee helps pay for the groups that we have lobbying for us in Washington. That's gonna be HUGE in the coming years.
 
DrNick2006 said:
there are plans to cut medicare by 16% over the next ten years. And medicare represents half of payments, so the average physician stands to loose 8% of income. Also, insurance companies will continue to squeeze us, as will hospitals. While physicians are ultimatly driven by the patient (how many doc's won't see a patient if they are in real trouble and can't pay) everyone else looks at dollars, and so we are the first to get screwed. Not to mention the ones who make policy are lawyers (there are few physicians in congress). And while new physicians may decrease (med school apps are down again I beleive) all of us already here are stuck (find another job with 200K in debt) So everyone should beleive that there is a war on out there so make sure you're all aware of the issues facing physicians, become a member in physician advocacy groups and make a difference. Its your livelihood we're dealing with here. Don't look for public sympathy either. Whats the first thing you hear when you say your going to be a doctor? 'Oh your gonna be loaded some day!' yeah right. Sure doctors still live relatively comfortably compared to the average american, but the days of rich doctors are over unless you find extra-medical income.
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hey nick

great post.

the people interested in pursuing this profession need to know how troubled it is. you are right the phisicians are the first ones to get screwed..

are applications down again to medical school? I would not think otherwise with whats going on. its terrible.. and im in practice. I just heard last year that the downward trend halted and it applications were on the rise..
 
Pooh & Annie said:
My guess is more places that can get away with not accepting medicare will do so. In certain areas, this wouldn't be possible because the entire patient population uses medicare. Evetually doctors will leave these areas that are already less desirable. Then what?
The government can decide what they want to reimburse, but doctors can choose who they want to see. At some point, there will be a stalemate, kind of like there already is in certain areas with astronomical malpractice insurance. What will happen in these cases, I don't know. I do suggest that everyone get involved by at least joining the AMA. Our membership fee helps pay for the groups that we have lobbying for us in Washington. That's gonna be HUGE in the coming years.
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I second that.
 
Send your Medicare patients my way. In a Rural Health Clinic (a specific entity with specific requirements for designation, in an officially recognized medically underserved area) you can get ~$100 for Medicare/Medicaid visits. $$ :) $$

Add that to lower cost of living in the boonies...it's surprising more people don't want to do this.
 
Everyone knows that physicians have historically been more heart than brains. We are where the buck stops in the system and have all kinds of power to wield but dont, because we act as if we will endanger the patients. Corporations are no more willing to have ppl die b/c of their desires, they just know we'll give in first. Its about time we started being smart about these things. There are a ton of bright ppl in the field, your telling me we cant figure something out?

As far as wages, i have heard from many in practice (non academic) that their salaries recently stopped dropping and enjoyed a modest bump.
Med school apps may be down but who knows why, the quality certainly hasnt gone down, its only getting better each year. You have to remember they have been complaining about this stuff forever, in House of God doesnt it have a doomsday prediction?
 
Physician salaries will definitely go down in the US.

As the population ages, there will be increasing pressure to bring health care costs under control. At the same time, companies that make drugs, devices, and other technologies demand growth at a greater than 10% annual rate, and they are very politically powerful. Even hospitals are already squeezed to near their maximum; if they push harder at that, many more hospitals will close.

The segment of the sector that's easiest to cram down is provider costs, and so that's what will happen.
 
What I see happening is that rather than the lower paid specialties getting further cuts in the salary, the higher paying specialties will get cut to lessen the gap in pay between, for example, an FP and radiologist. Ortho saw the huge cuts in the 80's. I predict that anesthesia, cardiology, and radiology will have reimbursements cut where you will no longer seeing so many people in these fields making upwards of $500,000.
 
scholes said:
What I see happening is that rather than the lower paid specialties getting further cuts in the salary, the higher paying specialties will get cut to lessen the gap in pay between
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You may be right. The current system favors procedural-based specialties. However, procedures are also low-hanging fruit for cost-containment. Today's "golden" specialties could fall from favor overnight with a simple change in insurance reimbursement. One notable example is cataract surgery. A decade or so ago, cataracts reimbursed pretty well, and many an ophthalmologist cashed in on "cataract mills", just cranking 'em through. That all changed when Medicare drastically lowered the reimbursement for cataract extraction. Heme-onc is seeing a similar backlash related to in-office drug infusions. Many other specialties are easy targets for this sort of thing. Bottom line: don't make a career decison based on what's "hot" or lucrative today, as it could be cold as ice tomorrow. Do what you truly enjoy, and the money will matter a lot less.
 
KentW said:
You may be right. The current system favors procedural-based specialties. However, procedures are also low-hanging fruit for cost-containment. Today's "golden" specialties could fall from favor overnight with a simple change in insurance reimbursement. One notable example is cataract surgery. A decade or so ago, cataracts reimbursed pretty well, and many an ophthalmologist cashed in on "cataract mills", just cranking 'em through. That all changed when Medicare drastically lowered the reimbursement for cataract extraction. Heme-onc is seeing a similar backlash related to in-office drug infusions. Many other specialties are easy targets for this sort of thing. Bottom line: don't make a career decison based on what's "hot" or lucrative today, as it could be cold as ice tomorrow. Do what you truly enjoy, and the money will matter a lot less.
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That example is the main reason Medicare did that. They took a look at their books, noticed the god-awful amount of cataract surgeries and the reimbursements and said, "heres a quick X million of the top". If the gov't catches you exploiting something, they will find their way into it.
 
nir1009 said:
Do you guys think physician salaries will continue to go down in the next 10-15 years (Family Practice & Specialties)?
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Look at Sen. John Edwards - he wanted to cap physician salaries at $95,000 a year.

Isn't it funny how he is willing to propose a law capping another profession's salaries and yet I wager he would never dare put a capp on his own profession's salary.

Kind of makes one wonder why so many med students favored Kerry. Of course Bush ain't no better either, Nine trillion dollar debt anyone? +pissed+

For those of you who are about to finish your residency, try to invest some of that money really fast. And how bout them 401K and Roth IRA?

For those of us who are nowhere close to residency - well, can you give a little bit of that investment to us? :D
 
Doctors have an f-ing monopoly. Only doctors can write prescriptions only doctors can do surgery. If insurance companies charge too much, then another company can enter the market and take their business. This cannot possibly happen to doctors, they are the only ones with the monopoly. If doctors say "we dont want to take low medicare fees" then they dont have to, there's nothing the government can do about it. If they dont want to be told how to prescribe medicine by an insurance company, they can refuse to take that company's coverage. What are doctors whining about? Doctors as a group need to stop being so complacent and picking up the slack because they are selfless by nature. If doctors would stand up and tell everyone else in the healthcare business how it's going to be, then the problem would e solved. The insurance companies would have to cede to doctors or else not be treated. Doctors feel guilty about not working for pennies on the dollar because they are worried about patients. At the same time, insurance companies are more salient than ever. (Aetna CEO had multimillion dollar bonus this last year) Who's the sucker now?
 
joedoctor said:
If doctors would stand up and tell everyone else in the healthcare business how it's going to be, then the problem would e solved.
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Physicians do not, in fact, have any kind of monopoly. There is a variety of legislation in place which makes it virtually impossible for doctors to negotiate as a group. Read this for more info.
 
If you stop seeing your medicare patients, then they will swing by the ED to visit me, but now instead of having a basic complaint, they will have much more serious problems that will require a hospital admit as well as much more $$$$ treatments.

While this will not directly affect you by not seeing them, it will cause the hospital to charge $10,000 to medicare/medicaid, and since you are paying taxes, the $10,000 bill is INDIRECTLY paid by you and all of us.

Dumping patients is not the answer, political activism IS, get involved, and seriously, if you complain but never vote/volunteer/rally/or write a letter to your state reps STFU, you are just part of the problem. By being complacent it is a non-verbal concession that things are honky dory and no problem exists.

Dr. Nick hit the nail on the head!
 
Insurance companies are guilty of collusion. They work in concert to keep reimbursements unfairly low on many types of office visits.

It is really outrageous that health insurance companies' profits continues to sky rocket while doctors on average are actually having negative salary growth when you factor in inflation and the cost of raises and health insurance premiums for office staff and nurses.

If you buy a car or any small item from an electronics store on your credit card, the credit card company will come after you and ruin your credit if you become delinquent. On the other hand, doctors often provide a significant amount of care that goes unbilled or unpaid and rarely is the actual collections process invoked.

The other problem is that althought the federal govt earns approximately $1 trillion per year from taxes, a good chunk of the money is misspent. Before it used to be the Democrats who were all about tax and mis-spend, now the Republicans have also joined the tax and mis-spend club. The voice of reason on federal expediture has ceased to exist.
 
joedoctor said:
Doctors have an f-ing monopoly. Only doctors can write prescriptions only doctors can do surgery. If insurance companies charge too much, then another company can enter the market and take their business. This cannot possibly happen to doctors, they are the only ones with the monopoly. If doctors say "we dont want to take low medicare fees" then they dont have to, there's nothing the government can do about it. If they dont want to be told how to prescribe medicine by an insurance company, they can refuse to take that company's coverage. What are doctors whining about? Doctors as a group need to stop being so complacent and picking up the slack because they are selfless by nature. If doctors would stand up and tell everyone else in the healthcare business how it's going to be, then the problem would e solved. The insurance companies would have to cede to doctors or else not be treated. Doctors feel guilty about not working for pennies on the dollar because they are worried about patients. At the same time, insurance companies are more salient than ever. (Aetna CEO had multimillion dollar bonus this last year) Who's the sucker now?
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Your argument is flawed. Doctors do not have a monopoly, because a monopoly requires one entity supplying the product or service. Doctors are not one entity. In fact, we are all competitors of each other. If a doctor told an insurance company to meet his requirements or take a hike, the company would simply go give the contract to another physician. There is no shortage of physicians. The only way your argument could work is if several physicians could unite to make a large enough entity to have some leverage. Unfortunately, physicians cannot unionize. The best we can do is form IPAs, which still have to work within a very strict legal framework. So, our hands are tied. There is no way we can all competing against each other because it is impossible to bring everyone to do the same thing without actually making a formal union.
I believe that physician reimbursement will continue to decline for several years, until at least some of the power is taken away from third-party payors. Already, employers across the nation are cutting back on health benefits and putting part of the burden back on individuals. This is forcing people to actually become aware of the costs of healthcare, instead of simply being aware of their insurance premiums. It will take time, but the public in this country will have to shoulder more of its own burden, and I think we will see more FFS over time.
We must also keep in mind that insurance companies and pharmaceuticals are juggernauts, with unmatched lobbying power. That means they are here to stay, and we'll have to fight back an inch at a time to get what we deserve. Medicine is unique as a profession. Nowhere else do you see professionals providing a product/service on a daily basis without any guarantee that they will get paid what they charge, or get paid at all. We are simply held to a different standard, and for good reason - we make life and death decisions. In the meantime, the uniqueness of our profession places us at a great disadvantage. It is no surprise that so many physicians start off wanting to help people, but become jaded because of the demands put on them.
Personally, I'm not counting on great financial returns from my medical career. I plan on investing diversely because that is the only real way to make money and save.
 
Qafas said:
Your argument is flawed. Doctors do not have a monopoly, because a monopoly requires one entity supplying the product or service. Doctors are not one entity. In fact, we are all competitors of each other. If a doctor told an insurance company to meet his requirements or take a hike, the company would simply go give the contract to another physician. There is no shortage of physicians. The only way your argument could work is if several physicians could unite to make a large enough entity to have some leverage. Unfortunately, physicians cannot unionize. The best we can do is form IPAs, which still have to work within a very strict legal framework. So, our hands are tied. There is no way we can all competing against each other because it is impossible to bring everyone to do the same thing without actually making a formal union.
I believe that physician reimbursement will continue to decline for several years, until at least some of the power is taken away from third-party payors. Already, employers across the nation are cutting back on health benefits and putting part of the burden back on individuals. This is forcing people to actually become aware of the costs of healthcare, instead of simply being aware of their insurance premiums. It will take time, but the public in this country will have to shoulder more of its own burden, and I think we will see more FFS over time.
We must also keep in mind that insurance companies and pharmaceuticals are juggernauts, with unmatched lobbying power. That means they are here to stay, and we'll have to fight back an inch at a time to get what we deserve. Medicine is unique as a profession. Nowhere else do you see professionals providing a product/service on a daily basis without any guarantee that they will get paid what they charge, or get paid at all. We are simply held to a different standard, and for good reason - we make life and death decisions. In the meantime, the uniqueness of our profession places us at a great disadvantage. It is no surprise that so many physicians start off wanting to help people, but become jaded because of the demands put on them.
Personally, I'm not counting on great financial returns from my medical career. I plan on investing diversely because that is the only real way to make money and save.
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great great post...

I am 3 years in practice and i am so friggin jaded.. I owe upwards of 200k on my student loans.. the amount per month after consolidation is almost 1300.. one thousand of that is interest.. I am not getting anywhere for a while with that kind of situation. Im just lucky i did not pick family medicine or internal medicine as my specialty of choice..


does anyone know the real numbers of people applying to medical school? is it going down again?
 
We just had a lecture on it actually. The number has gone down over the past couple of years but has risen again this year.

(The explanation was that because of the poor job market, more students are inclined to continue their education in grad school rather than search for jobs. Needless to say, the lowest number of applicants occured during the Internet boom in the late 90's. My cousin even dropped out of a high ranking med school to join the fracas!)

Out of curiousity, what would be the highest paying specialty then? I know I know...that is not the way to pick anything (let alone a medical profession)

But if you were to guess which specialty receives the highest pay and would continue receiving it during the next couple of decades, what do you think it would be?

My guess would be anything cosmetically related. e.g. plastics and derm (Perhaps another reason why these 2 fields are so incredibly competitive?)
 
I would like to reiterate what some wise folks have said on this thread. Instead of wondering what the future holds for physician compensation, get involved. At the very least, support groups financially like the AMA that lobby for physicians. Continue to pay your membership dues for the rest of your career. Write your congresspersons. Most importantly, be informed.
 
cdql said:
We just had a lecture on it actually. The number has gone down over the past couple of years but has risen again this year.

(The explanation was that because of the poor job market, more students are inclined to continue their education in grad school rather than search for jobs. Needless to say, the lowest number of applicants occured during the Internet boom in the late 90's. My cousin even dropped out of a high ranking med school to join the fracas!)

Out of curiousity, what would be the highest paying specialty then? I know I know...that is not the way to pick anything (let alone a medical profession)

But if you were to guess which specialty receives the highest pay and would continue receiving it during the next couple of decades, what do you think it would be?

My guess would be anything cosmetically related. e.g. plastics and derm (Perhaps another reason why these 2 fields are so incredibly competitive?)
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anything that is cash based.. such as what dr rey does.. betcha he has no idea what a family practice doc makes LOL
 
KentW said:
Physicians do not, in fact, have any kind of monopoly. There is a variety of legislation in place which makes it virtually impossible for doctors to negotiate as a group. Read this (Sec. 2.5 discusses antitrust law) for more info.
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You are talking about physicians setting prices as a group which is in fact illegal. I am not saying doctors should overvalue their services, but only that doctors have the option, as an individual to accept or deny whichever insurance providers they want. All I am saying is that supply and demand determine the prices that will prevail in the market. If an insurance companies decides to reimburse a doctor $50 for each heart bypass surgery he performs, then no doctor will agree to take their patients. When doctors complain that the insurance companies won't pay them the $1000 fee for a physical they used to charge in the eighties, there is a good reason - there is a doctor out there who is just as qualified (in terms of having a valid license) who will do it cheaper. If there are enough doctors out there who will accept the lower price to meet the demand for a given procedure, then that lower price will prevail. That is why, short of market failures, economists say that the prevailing price in a competitive market=a fair price.
If a radiologist wants to charge $1000 for a simple x-ray
 
stephend7799 said:
anything that is cash based.. such as what dr rey does.. betcha he has no idea what a family practice doc makes LOL
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haha...the problem with that is, it doesn't feel like medicine to me anymore (just a personal opinion...please don't bite my head off :) )

i guess it is helping people (i love it when everyone who walks out of his office has the same thing to say, "I feel so much better. Dr. Rey has helped me bring the person inside of me to the forefront.") but it really doesn't match what most of us put down on our personal statement to get into med school

or maybe i'm just too naive still! haha
 
Financial losses for physicians has been a trend for the past 30 years. While the physical number for salary has been relatively consistent, the failure of our field to keep up with inflation perpetuates. An Internist earning $150k in 1975 is still earning $150k today. They should be making $360k according to other business standards that include an annual increase in salary of 3%. I guess everything is relative...
 
So in a sense, the problem is doctors screwing over doctors.

When one internist tells an insurance company that he won't accept $35 for a 30-45min initial office visit or physical, then the insurance company finds another doctor who will take the $35. This second doctor is completely oblivious to the grand scheme of things and is incredibly short sighted.

The numbers prove that when inflation and cost of goods are factored in, physicians' incomes have had negative growth over the past decade or two. On the other hand, cost of medical school has continued to jump at a rate greater than inflation.

Unfortunately, like others have said, physicians as a group are not as good on business end of things as the insurance companies and not as politically active as lawyers. Thus, we are being pressed by insurance companies and malpractice premiums alike. Lawyer politicians and lobbyists are always able to put up a roadblock to any kind of sensible tort reform.

An eye opening fact is that in this era of stagnant and decreasing medicare benefits and stagnant reimbursements, Aetna Healthcare made record profits in 2004 and continued it in 2005.
 
joedoctor said:
Doctors have an f-ing monopoly. Only doctors can write prescriptions only doctors can do surgery.
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2 words for you: NPs and PAs. Please read up on these, lest you enter the profession and find yourself shocked by the infiltration that outsiders have gained onto MDs turf.

NPs and PAs can both script drugs and can both do surgeries. They arent allowed to run the surgery solo YET, but in many places they can do 90% of the surgery solo and have the attending do only the most critical/technical part of the operation.

You are incredibly naive.

Others who can script drugs: pharmacists, psychologists, naturopaths (NDs), chiropractors.

The concept of doctors as a monopoly ended around the late 1960s.
 
It is inevitable that doctor salaries will decline. I predict they will decline to about on par with what european and canadian doctors make before the salary decline stops.

Medicare currently controls 50% of all healthcare dollars in the United States. By 2020, it will be 80%. Thats a de facto monopoly folks. By the year 2020, we will have de facto universal healthcare coverage. Medicare will obtain sufficient market share to single handedly dictate physician salaries across all specialties.

When that happens (and it will happen), doctors salaries will start teh precipitous decline towards canadian and euro salaries. That translates to roughly 80-100k per year average for primary care, and 120-180k for specialists. Check the Canadian doctor salary surveys. Of course it will be worse in the states because we have to deal with this godawful lawsuit culture that doesnt exist in Canada or Europe.

My only hope at this point is that the bureaucrats are smart enough to cut specialists fees without cutting primary care fees. Some specialties AVERAGE over 400k per year. Hopefully govt will cut those down first before touching the poor FP doc who only makes 120k per year.
 
Why can't doctors unionize?
 
MacGyver said:
It is inevitable that doctor salaries will decline. I predict they will decline to about on par with what european and canadian doctors make before the salary decline stops.
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Ouch...I hope not!

1) For my own selfish reasons :)

2) For the sake of the medical profession. (Those doctors work in a national health care system) But even if we put that aside, there's a good reason why sick people flock to the US for health care. We've got the best doctors! The best technology! The best people operating that technology!

I'm afraid that if salaries keep dropping, the biggest and brightest minds from colleges will choose to enter something more profitable. Medicine is supposed to be about caring and altruism. But ultimately, money is the bottom line for a lot of people.

If salaries keep dropping and if I were a college kid, I would take my skills elsewhere. (I assume if you're smart enough to get into med school, you would be reasonably successful in most other things you applied yourself to) Why not business? Why not law? Why not engineering? Why not journalism? To ask people to spend 4 additional years in school, emerge with on average $100K in debt, and then have to slave away in a residency for near minimal pay is asking a lot if these people do not have a reasonable salary to look forward to after all is said and done. (Notice, I said reasonable and not millionaire salaries! :) )
 
100k of debt might be the average, but as we all know, some students from private med schools emerge with three to five times that amount of debt.

If you went to a private university for undergrad and grad work(or post bacc) and med school, and you take almost 100% loan for tuition and living every year, you will have a huge amount of debt.

The next generation of med school applicants would be wise to take this into consideration so as to avoid a very rude awakening 10-5 years from now.
 
Oh yea...didn't even consider that!

Imagine our best college students choosing not to go to Harvard med (just using an example of a private school) and entering another field.

I didn't even factor in the cost of loans from undergrad. Undergrad tuition keeps rising too and just handling that is enough to make most students keel over. Who could blame them for not wanting to study anymore and incurring more debt? Who could blame them for wanting to get into the job market right away to start paying off those undergrad loans?

It would take an incredibly committed and incredibly altruistic student to take on that kind of debt + the debt from medical school in the face of ever-decreasing salaries. That is why I believe the salary drop has to end somewhere!
 
MacGyver said:
It is inevitable that doctor salaries will decline. I predict they will decline to about on par with what european and canadian doctors make before the salary decline stops.

Medicare currently controls 50% of all healthcare dollars in the United States. By 2020, it will be 80%. Thats a de facto monopoly folks. By the year 2020, we will have de facto universal healthcare coverage. Medicare will obtain sufficient market share to single handedly dictate physician salaries across all specialties.

When that happens (and it will happen), doctors salaries will start teh precipitous decline towards canadian and euro salaries. That translates to roughly 80-100k per year average for primary care, and 120-180k for specialists. Check the Canadian doctor salary surveys. Of course it will be worse in the states because we have to deal with this godawful lawsuit culture that doesnt exist in Canada or Europe.

My only hope at this point is that the bureaucrats are smart enough to cut specialists fees without cutting primary care fees. Some specialties AVERAGE over 400k per year. Hopefully govt will cut those down first before touching the poor FP doc who only makes 120k per year.
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Is medical school as expensive for the average student in Europe and Canada as it is here?
 
Sohalia said:
Is medical school as expensive for the average student in Europe and Canada as it is here?
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In England, I think med school is free. But I could be wrong!

I know college is free if you are a UK resident.
 
What happened to AustinTX MD who made the website exposing the insurance companies? How come it's not updated anymore?
 
Many EU med schools are free to all EU citizens. (Example: A Swede could go to an Irish med school for free)
I wouldn't be a doctor if I had to join a union.
AMA isn't neccessarily on our side. I would never join them.
 
penguins said:
Many EU med schools are free to all EU citizens. (Example: A Swede could go to an Irish med school for free)
I wouldn't be a doctor if I had to join a union.
AMA isn't neccessarily on our side. I would never join them.
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Not true Penguin, the sole purpose of the AMA is to provide a unified voice for physicians. Our major problem is that unlike say lawyers, we spend our time actually doing our jobs and treating patients and ignoring all the public interest issues that affect our ability to practice. The AMA is attempting to make huge strides in terms of physician reimbursement, access to care, CME, etc.; but as physicians we have to actually realize the importance of these issues and help out because no congressman is going to listen to a lobbiest but they will sure as s--- listen to a doc who says if you don't do something I'm going to close my office because I can't afford to keep it open. That's multiple jobs and untreated patients --> politicos don't like that idea. Until you go to an AMA meeting and see what they talk about and participate in the process I would refrain from making any comments about the AMA...those of us who spend the time and money to go would appreciate it.
 
I think many are disillusioned with the AMA because they talk, talk, talk and nothing ever gets done.

Nothing ever changes.

(I have been to many AMA conferences so I can comment on this)

I'm an optimist and I would like to believe that our lobbying does something. But I'm sure there are many doctors out there that feel the AMA merely takes their yearly dues and spews out a bunch of hot air about reform and making big strides.

At times, even I am tempted to say, what strides are being made?
 
Stephanieukmed said:
...Not true Penguin, the sole purpose of the AMA is to provide a unified voice for physicians...
Click to expand...

They don't speak for me on a range of issues from abortion to guns. I'd be a lot more supportive if they kept their mouths shut on controversial social issues and stuck to lobbying for our economic issues.

Besides, the AMA, like AMSA, is full of avtivists who advocate socialized medicine. Not meaning to start a debate on the merits of that idea but I think everybody can agree it would be a disaster for physician salaries.
 
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