I have been reading about the UK doctors strike, and saw that many British doctors make $35-40k/year. Here in the US, most doctors make well over 100k. Our price of healthcare is driving a lot of people to bankruptcy.
Remarks from economist Uwe Reinhardt on that very question back in 2007:
This 2013 article supports that analysis:
Now, if we had a more equitable system of funding medical training and insuring medical practice, physicians would be saddled with less massive education debt and malpractice insurance premiums, and I expect in that case their compensation would decrease somewhat. But the big savings from a revamped healthcare system would come from other aspects of it.
Yes, in general. It doesn’t apply to any particular doctor, but the industry has maintained a high floor for doctor’s pay without any justification based on value.
In most 1st-world countries, doctor is a solidly middle-class job. Rich doctors are largely an American phenomenon.
Well, $100 k is sort of the average going rate for any phd level trade in the US. Any engineering, software, medical, business, law, economist masters or phd holder is going to expect to target somewhere in that ballpark ± $30 k right out of university (unless they’re going straight into academia).
On the flip side $35-40k/yr is about what an undergrad degree in those fields would be paying.
Also remember doctors spend 4 years incurring obscene amounts of debt and several years of residency working obscene hours. If they didn’t get a decent wage, there would be a major shortage of them. For $34-45 k no doctor could afford to live close to the hospitals in major cities, much less pay off debt, or justify it to their spouses given the amount of time they work. You could try to arbitrarily set a regulated price for doctors wages, but in 5-10 years you’ll be short a crapload of doctors when every parent tells their kids that the doctor’s trade is broken (and frankly with the debt and hours and malpractice costs, it kinda already is).
Depends on the doctor and their specialty. A run of the mill resident doctor is not making huge dollars. Many doctors make the lion’s share of their money through their ownership stake in an outpatient clinic that performs procedures for less than hospitals charge. For example, an endoscopy costs a few thousand dollars in a hospital. The doctor sees about $150 of that and the hospital gets a $2000 facility fee. The doctor opens a clinic where he does the endoscopy and he still gets $150 for the procedure but now his clinic is getting $750 for a facility fee.
I don’t think most doctors are getting filthy rich off the insurance reimbursement rates.
There are plenty of ways of ensuring that doctors can get their education without going deeply into debt. Many of them haven’t gone deeply in debt to get through medical school because someone else paid their bills. This is simply an excuse for inflating the value of doctors, something that pervades much of the medical industry because it increases the pay rate for administrators and profits the insurance companies from the overall inflation of medical costs.
In the current system poor and sparsely populated areas do have a shortage of doctors because they can’t pay the inflated prevailing rates offered elsewhere.
One factor that led to the inflated salaries was the increase of high paying technology jobs, doctors insisted that they remained at the top end of the professional pay scale simply based on envy and greed.
Well, this is a little bit of a chicken/egg scenario.
If being a doctor (specialist )didn’t pay so much (generally), then would the costs/requirements to access to the career be so high?
The medical education/training system inflates costs in relation to what the graduates can expect to earn (and thus what kind of loan they’re able to get to support that education).
About $55k/year on average.
The site wasn’t working for me. I find the numbers dubious, it implies there are doctors working for less than $55K a year, essentially paid internships, charity work, or not treating patients if it occurs.
They also work 80 hours a week or sometimes much more while paying back student loans at the same time. That isn’t very good for someone in their late 20’s with a professional degree. I wouldn’t have worked for that in my late 20’s two decades ago even with normal hours and no student load debt.
I personally don’t think that doctors are overpaid at all because I have seen what it takes to become one through family and friends. The years of little to no pay and absurd hours alone account for the differential between them and your average white collar professional.
Those figures are for residents - doctors with an MD but still in training under the supervision of other doctors (think Scrubs). They typically have to work 80+ hours a week and sometimes much more. It is both an educational model and a hazing process that is designed to keep them cash poor during the early years.
I am sure that the 55k figure is in the ballpark but I am surprised it is that high today.
$100k seems ridiculously low for US doctors. I don’t think I know any doctors that gross less than $200k. I’m in NY area, so that could be part of it.
Might be issues with the slideshow–most of the numbers are also included here. (If that doesn’t work for you, it might be the site not playing nicely with your browser.) That article does speak to some of the issues driving resident MD salary disparities–there’s a lot of geographic difference (the Northeast pays a lot better than, say, the rural West) as well as wide difference in pay by specialty.
That’s the lower end of the scale for the doctors in dispute, i.e., doctors doing their advanced specialty training in NHS hospitals, after their initial university medical degree. Depending on the level of training they’ve achieved and responsibility they’re undertaking, the scales run from about that level on initial training appointment, up to much higher levels. On top of that, there are additional payments for overtime/emergency cover time, which can raise their income by up to one-third; the current dispute is about the government’s plans to count most of Saturdays as part of the basic working week and other adjustments (basically, they promised a “7-day NHS” without actually working out how to pay for it, and without realising that the issue is the support services, technicians and ancillary paramedical services, as much as the availability of doctors).
Once doctors have done their advanced specialty training, they can apply for consultant (“senior” doctor) posts, where salaries are much more (and they are allowed a certain amount of time for private practice and/or academic research).
Doctors in general practice are mostly in self-employed partnerships contracted to the NHS; the recommended payment scales allow for an income anywhere up to around £85k a year.
http://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/about/careers-medicine/pay-doctors
I had a few friends as residents and we discussed salaries a couple of times. They did make around that figure, and at least some started lower. They most likely get yearly raises, so of course some will always make lower and some may make more. It also depends on the specialty.
I have… mixed opinions on that (being a veterinarian). Many medical students in the US do incur in student debt, not for the undergraduate education, but for medical school. Unlike undergraduate degrees, there are less scholarships available at that level, and they may not cover all the costs of medical school. Also, unlike undergraduate degrees, in which people can say “Oh, I worked my way through school”, this is harder to do in medical school, especially once they get into clinics, which is essentially on the job training. Unlike undergraduates, too, after the second year or so, the schooling is year-long, meaning that they do not have summers to play “catch up” and work to save some money.
This is for medical school in the US. Obviously this is not the case in other places, were students can go directly from their high school equivalent to medical school, or where tertiary education is free or almost free.
This Forbes article suggests that you’re right; the lower-paying specialties are looking at something like $190k average gross for full-time docs.
(Aside: that article also indicates graduation with some $140k in loan debt. Even assuming five years of (relatively) low-paying residency–in the $55k range if the numbers above are accurate–that debt load seems pretty manageable for someone earning close to $200k in year 6. I mean sure, med school costs a lot of money, but if you’re covering it handily in a couple years’ salary, I’m not seeing why I should feel sorry for you. What am I missing?)
Fully agree, but that’s the way it is in the US and it does have a confounding effect since a nontrivial percentage of doctors do go into debt and need to have a wage that allows them to pay it off, because a full spectrum fix or assumption of medical debt isn’t going to happen anytime soon.
It’s just standard supply and demand impacts in choosing professions. No reason to demonize people who are just trying to provide a better life for themselves and their families. Entrepreneurs and companies negotiate prices and wages every day. We can’t pretend we don’t have limited talent and resources.
Or around US$125k. Chump change compared to specialists in the US.
What about docs in private hospitals/private practice, not contracted with the NHS?
No. Doctors are paid a market wage. I’d say Burger King’s onion placer is the one overpaid. Don’t worry these are coming. http://www.fastcoexist.com/3049708/meet-the-scary-little-security-robot-thats-patrolling-silicon-valley