Posted on 06/08/2008 4:33:55 PM PDT by neverdem
Almost two-thirds of primary care physicians would choose another field if they had their careers to do over, a new survey indicates, while more than 50 percent consider themselves "second class citizens" compared to surgical and diagnostic specialists.
The survey was conducted for Physicians Practice, an award-winning practice-management journal read by more than 275,000 physicians nationwide. Conducting the survey was physician search and consulting firm Merritt, Hawkins & Associates. The annual survey is intended to measure the career satisfaction levels and concerns of primary care doctors, defined as family practitioners, general internists, and pediatricians. The survey suggests that though primary care doctors are both busy and in increasing demand, they are not necessarily satisfied with their place in the medical hierarchy.
"Between declining reimbursement, rising overhead, and loss of autonomy and respect, primary care physicians are feeling battered," notes Pamela Moore, senior editor of Physicians Practice. "That makes it more crucial than ever for them to create the sort of practice they can actually enjoy."
Only about 40 percent of primary care physicians surveyed said they would stay in primary care if they had their medical education to do over again. About 39 percent said they would become surgical or diagnostic specialists, while about 22% said they would not choose medicine as a career.
Over 80 percent of primary care physicians surveyed indicated that they have busy practices, while fewer than 17 percent stated that they are not busy enough. Over 57 percent said they are contacted about job opportunities about 50 times per year by physician recruiters. Both these findings suggest that primary care physicians are in robust demand and that the job market for their services is favorable.
However, about 60 percent of those surveyed felt that the income they derive from their practice is disappointing. About 50 percent of primary care physicians indicated they earn $150,000 or less a year. By contrast, Merritt, Hawkins & Associates' data indicate that cardiologists, radiologists and other medical specialists commonly earn $300,000 or more. Not surprisingly, fewer than 15 percent consider themselves equal partners with surgical and diagnostic specialists, while 85 percent consider themselves either "junior partners" or "second class citizens."
Practice overhead is a concern for many of the primary care physicians surveyed. The majority (62 percent) said overhead in their practices runs at 50 percent of their income or more. This can make a practice difficult to sustain, Moore notes. Almost 40 percent expressed doubt that their practices could support projected overhead over the next five years.
Complete results of the survey are included in the September/October issue of Physicians Practice magazine, and online at http://www.physicianspractice.com.
About Physicians Practice. Physicians Practice provides award-winning practice-management advice to more than 275,000 physicians through partnerships with 60 medical centers throughout the United States. For more than 17 years, doctors have trusted Physicians Practice for expertise on billing, coding, collections, technology, workflow, staffing, compensation, and much more. Physicians Practice is published by CMP Healthcare Media, LLC, a division of United Business Media.
About Merritt, Hawkins & Associates. Merritt, Hawkins & Associates is a leading physician search and consulting firm. Based in Irving, Texas it is a division of AMN Healthcare (NYSE: AHS), the largest health care staffing firm in the United States.
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Article URL: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/81499.php
Main News Category: Primary Care / General Practice
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Tens of thousands, perhaps even a hundred thousand of more of qualified US applicants to US medical schools were turned away over the last few decades. Academic and political medicine IS at fault for that if there is a real “shortage” now.
Tell your kids to go to law school, work directly for the government outside of medicine, or run for public office.
National health care will mean less qualified doctors and more care done by non doctor caregivers, no doubt about it. US kids will no longer be motivated to put up with the ever increasing crap and capped salaries that national health care would bring. This is ALREADY HAPPENING WITHOUT NATIONAL HEALTH CARE.
You can’t be “greedy” in medicine...price is regulated...The government and the private insurance companies determine the cost of services...I don’t understand your point.
Just in time for the boomers. Dr. Ken's advice: Don't age and don't get sick or injured.
In my tiny, insignificant life, I personally know four physicians who have either walked away from their practice or retired very early. A lot of the reasons are disgust with HMO proceedures and paperwork, micromanagement, and second-guessing where accountants practice Medicine. One even wrote a book castigating his career.
No, make that five. So here are people who dreamed of a noble, respected profession and put in the time, money and abuses of internship and residency, who essentially say, "I should have been a plumber".
“The government and the private insurance companies determine the cost of services..”’
What planet are you on?? We have a dentist in this town that charges $250 for a routine extraction. The others were charging $75. Now all charge $250. Doesn’t look like regulation to me.
Further hints: her first name is Michele and she formerly attended the church where Rev. Jeremiah Wright preached.
FPs don't see patients in the hospital anymore!! They don't have hospital privileges. They don't want hospital privileges, and who can blame them? Without privileges, they don't have to be "on call" to non-paying patients. When the patient calls the FP after hours, he tells them to "go to the ER."
If the patient comes to the clinic and needs to be admitted to the hospital, the FP says "go to the ER and get admitted." They then have to wait to be seen by the ER doc (hours and hours)--then the hospitalist must come down to formally examine and admit the patient (hours and hours).
re: I work for trauma services in a Level 2 center that has been searching for another trauma surgeon for over a year.
Yup--drive carefully, folks. Not only are trauma centers accepting the downgrading of their ERs, but many hospitals are considering not having a trauma center at all.
Americans don't know how good they have it right now--but this system has got to collapse. When and how, who knows?
But, in the meantime, it's really helpful to resent hospitals and their personnel.
Lawyers always survey among the tops in job dissatisfaction. Now that I think of it, not too many accountants are fired up about their choice of careers and engineers and IT guys are always posting here with advice not to follow in their footsteps.
What’s a guy or gal to do?
Yes, do drive carefully. In addition to staffing issues trauma centers hemorrhage money. It’s hard for hospitals to absorb the cost of this very high priced care. The typical patient is injured because of risky behavior. Not the sort of person who worries about carrying health insurance. Personally, I’d hate to live in an area without a trauma center. Minutes count and the clock is ticking if you’re loaded on a helicopter for a flight to the nearest large city for treatment. Your description of hospitalists was on the money.
I propose "Universal Law Care." The government can regulate every aspect of legal service. That way everybody will get the same quality of legal care...except for those who are "more equal then others...
What planet are you on?? We have a dentist in this town that charges $250 for a routine extraction. The others were charging $75. Now all charge $250. Doesn’t look like regulation to me.
I think that everybody else on this thread is on the planet where M.D.'s are not called "dentists", do not fill cavities and do not pull teeth and the planet where Medicare does not cover either routine dental care or most dental procedures such as cleanings, fillings, tooth extractions or dentures.
M.D.'s do not treat your dog either. Those guys are called "veterinarians". Medicare doesn't cover that either.
Your mileage on your planet may vary.
Sounds like we have a couple of closet democrats commenting here. I was married to a surgeon for 30 yrs until his death. He worked 7 days a week rarely less than 14 hours a day. Missed almost all family holiday meals and celebrations due to emergencies. Missed many of our children’s events and almost missed the birth of our last child. He didn’t set his fees the insurance companies and gov. medicine did. When a call from the ER came he never asked if the patient had insurance took care of them and if they had no coverage and couldn’t pay he wrote it off. He was greatly loved and respected in our community. So I’d like to tell the a$$hat that worries about physicians banking their fees that they earn every damn dime. Incidentally 40% 0f what he earned went for office overhead and malpractice insurance. He provided health insurance for his office staff as well as profit sharing plans.
I refer to dentists as doctors. Perhaps I should have used a different example-there’s plenty of them.
And, I should add, I’m sure there are exceptions.
If all you want is to make money, you can do as well or better than a primary care physician over your entire career by working as a UPS truck driver. The doctor may make more per year, but there are fewer years in his career. The benefits for the UPS driver are WAY better, too.
There are plenty of New York City cops or DC bus drivers or Boston educrats who knock down more money than many doctors, with much less stress and sweat.
-ccm
I agree. Unfortunately, the media and Democrats are hell bent on “fixing” a problem that doesn’t exist (insurance) and they are using the mess caused by the doctor shortage as an excuse. If the media would spend only 1% of its effort trying to fix the problem that DOES exist, we would have solved this problem long ago.
Come to think of it you’re all right.
I think the world is changing much to quickly for the vast majority of even the best and brightest to deal with it.
This makes it difficult for many who may overeat and gain weight and not exercise, or worse yet, abuse alcohol and drugs to try to cope. This makes it difficult to stay healthy, exacerbating the boomer health care problems.
We were told 20-30 years ago that those who got a good education and trained for a good profession, whether it was medicine/related health care professions, accounting, engineering, or law, would not be facing the same kinds of problems that the uneducated and unmotivated would. We were convinced that there would not be the outsourcing of the highly skilled work force. But it seems that there has been a “dumbing down” of the skill necessary for the lowest paid positions that can’t seem to be outsourced. Employers seem to care more about these people who are likely to not show up the first day or leave before the first day’s shift’s end. They seem to find a myriad of similar positions that they wander to aimlessly and seem to somehow survive. Maybe they live in their parent’s basement or on our taxes through govenrment subsidies.
Not to mention the prospect of watching everything you own vanish with the tap of a gavel, and then rematerialize as John Edwards' Learjet.
-ccm
That's nice but this article does not use the generic term "doctor" that can be used to refer to anybody from a neurosurgeon to a Ph.D. in "Women's Studies" at your local university.
This article refers specifically to "Primary Care Physicians" which means something very specific and who are under the price setting situation of Medicare and the insurance companies which you claimed was not the case because of something your local dentists were doing.
In the case of physicians, they can charge whatever they please, $567,967.93 for an office visit is they want to, but the bottom line is that the insurance companies and Medicare will then pay the price that they decided to pay everybody, not a penny more, and that's that.
Even if physicians could collect whatever they wanted, at the slightest suspicion of price fixing with other physicians, the Feds would be on them for "safe harbor" regulations violations like pit-bulls on a pork-chop.
ping
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