Physician is seen as a lucrative career, but I’m going to guess it isn’t ‘as’ lucrative as it is made out to be when counting net income. Or I could be wrong.
Do they have to pay their own malpractice insurance premiums, or is that usually covered by their employer? How high are those? I think OBGYN have the highest, no idea about other specialties.
I think PCPs make around 150k a year. Specialists closer to 200-300k. But if you are making 250k a year and paying 40k for malpractice insurance, 90k in taxes, who knows what in student loans (probably 20k a year, probably more) that works out to 100k a year in net income. Still not bad by any means, but if they are putting in 50-60 hours a week that is about $40/hr in net income.
Keep in mind that most doctors today are not self-employed. It’s much more common now for a physician to be employed by a hospital, clinic or large group practice. I believe in such cases, the malpractice insurance is paid by the employer.
Hard one to answer; it goes all across the board. One I knew 35 years back was probably putting around $70+k a year in his pocket ----- but he had a wife and 8 kids to support and was damn good at what he did (specialized dentistry). My favorite GP 10 years back was putting maybe $50k in his pocket – but he worked like a dog for 6 months a year and then worked like a dog for free the other 6 in developing countries. I think medicine is one of those strange professions where you can almost write the ticket you want to get.
Your analysis is not so far off. Especially in the decade or so that it takes to pay off student loans, the final take-home pay is good, but not exceptional. I know physicians who feel that it’s not good enough given the non-financial costs of the job like hours and stress.
On the other hand, the ones I know who complain the most about their salaries also saddled themselves with a lot of other debts. With an income that high on paper, you can get a loan for anything you want. Cars, houses, boats, etc. If you’re not particularly disciplined, you can get yourself way in over your head.
Don’t forget retirement savings (pull $16k off that, doctors have to make up that time when ordinary humans were working) and if you have kids, you’ll pay for their college - there isn’t a lot of aid when you make $200k a year on paper.
Its better than flipping burgers, but it isn’t the path to untold wealth.
About 6 years ago Meriter Hospital in Madison was hiring new physicians right out of med school for $95k. I know because I saw three of the contracts for that same amount. The hospital was expecting to build and staff a network of area clinics, and was hiring … maybe 20-30 new docs? Quite a lot of them were basically warehoused in small offices in the hospital, not seeing patients, awaiting the clinics to be built.
I should say I didn’t read the details of the contracts, and there might easily be some other sources of income, maybe performance bonuses of some kinds. Of course, not having a usable space to see patients would put a real crimp in that income stream.
My DIL is a family physician and assoc. director of residencies in a hospital. She was hired five years ago at $225,000 and has maybe had raises. Her malpractice insurance is paid and she has no office or billing expenses. She left med school with $150,000 in loans and has converted it to a long-term mortgage type loan which she will pay off over 25 years. Still, it is a lot better than flipping burgers.
Specialists–especially surgeons–can make a half million or more. Not that they all do, but some do.
Malpractice insurance is a business expense for doctors. Their net income is their business earnings minus their business expenses. So the net incomes you see listed for doctors already has their malpractice insurance subtracted from it.
My wife use to do payroll for a good sized medical clinic. The doctors were considered partners, not employees, but still received a pay check every 2 weeks. She said the it was not unusual for the higher paid doctors to get pay checks well into the 5 figure area. Along with this came year end bonus checks that often were 6 figures.
Of the med students I have known, none of them were in it for the money - as opposed to people who went into engineering or got an MBA. As far as physicians I have known, they make good, very good money - but the complaint is often that they can’t enjoy a comfortable lifestyle until they are nearly 40.
To be a specialist in some subspecialties, you have to do the following:
Finish high school (at about 18)
Finish college (at about 22)
Finish medical school (at about 26)
Finish an internship (at about 27)
Finish a residency in the specialty (at about 30)
Finish a fellowship in the subspecialty (at about 33)
It could easily take until one is 40 before one has a practice that is fully established.
Anecdotally, my former internal medicine doctor, who was a solo practitioner, told me that if her husband had not been a business executive, that she would not have been able to drive the little sports car that she had. It wasn’t even a Porsche or anything like that. It was a sports car within a regular make line up.
I am going to guess the doctor was in her mid thirties at the time (she was pregnant, at least!).
I am an HCP but not a physician. I won’t state my income here but it is higher than the number quoted in post #5. Many of the physicians I know make much more than I do, but then we are all in our fifties and have been working in our fields for a long time.
It really depends. When I was employed 10 years ago I made good money. Now that I have my own office I work twice as hard for less than half the money. One year my receptionist made more than I did.
I was employed by a hospital for 9 years. They paid my malpractice insurance but paid me $120,000 for the first 5 years and $125,000 for the last 4. Full time plus one week per month of 24/7 on call while seeing clinic patients. That was up until this summer.
Not to hijack too much, but having worked as an engineer for 26 years, I don’t recall anyone who chose the career just for the money. By and large, they enjoyed the challenges of solving problems and designing things within their specialty.
Back to the topic at hand, my brother’s college roomie is now a well-respected orthopedic surgeon and lecturer at Johns Hopkins. He did 3 of my husband’s spinal surgeries, as well as working on most of my family members with structural issues. Last time he saw my husband, he asked if he needed a new knee or something since his daughter was getting married soon. He’s 58 and I don’t know what he earns, but obviously he still needs to deal with a budget at home.
My brother is an ER doc and earns north of $400,000. He has been out of medical school and residency for about 8 years. His group pays his insurance but since he is a partner and gets profit sharing, the cost of the insurance does affect his pay in the end.
He’s 58 and I don’t know what he earns, but obviously he still needs to deal with a budget at home.