Pediatricians salaries

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: To the pp who was unhappy about the fertility doctor's pay, there are tons of herbal/holistic remedies for infertility.

Hello, ignorant much??
I couldn't let this pass without a comment although I know it's not relevant to the rest of the post.
Herbal remedies are maybe effective in some mild forms of infertility. They're not going to do anything in cases of fallopian tube damage, sperm counts of close to zero or the zillion other reasons why people resort to the services of fertility medicine.

I know that, I just wanted to point out that you have to pay for science and expertise.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have to believe that there's something-- money, prestige-- that keeps doctors going back to work each day. Something other than a genuine desire to help people. Because a firm majority of doctors I encounter in this area are distant and condescending, and just plain rude. And I'm a super patient: well-read, compliant, respectful, etc. My dad's a doctor. I know how docs feel about being second-guessed or ignored altogether. Still, for all my pleasant demeanor, interest in my own care, etc, three out of four doctors I've met with don't make eye contact, grunt answers to my reasonable questions, and treat my body like an inanimate object. Am I to believe that a better salary would improve the quality of care? Why do they behave as if I have any control over the insurance payments? Frustrating.[/quote]

The problem is not the salary so much, but the amount of work that is required to maintain that minimal salary. I am a physician who no longer practices. When I was practicing in primary care, I made 110K seeing about 30 patients per day in the office plus whoever was in the hospital. I was working 11 hours a day, plus overnight every other week, plus an occasional Saturday clinic. Yes, I was cooked. And probably rude to some patients. If I had actually had time to spend with each patient and only had to see like 10 patients a day, I would have been so much happier. Heck I would have taken a pay cut to actually have time with my patients.

The problem is that you are on a treadmill to keep up with expenses in the face of lower insurance reimbursements -- so the way to make up for it is to see more and more patients. I would only go back to practicing if I worked for a practice that accepted no insurance.[/quote]

[quote] How did you make the decision to get out? I do not know how.....Read my story on 7/21/8:56

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:pp, was he supposed to do it for less? If so, what price did you have in mind. If insurance pays, they get $275 for an egg retrieval in a cycle, not much. Yes if you have many retrievals over time it adds up, but we are talking about elective procedures.

I'm the PP. You must be joking about the $275 for an egg retrieval. It was $12K in clinical bills per egg retrieval and ONE embryo transfer plus about $5K in drugs just for that. We went through 4 reetrievals, and 9 transfers.

And as for "elective procedures," you must not have ever been a fertility patient. When you're told that you won't have children, nothing about it feels elective. (Please no lectures about adoption -- we went through that just to lose 2 babies after the birth mother changed her mind).

Fertility doctors also have amazingly cushy hours. Really, it's the specialty to go into if you're in med school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: To the pp who was unhappy about the fertility doctor's pay, there are tons of herbal/holistic remedies for infertility.

Hello, ignorant much??
I couldn't let this pass without a comment although I know it's not relevant to the rest of the post.
Herbal remedies are maybe effective in some mild forms of infertility. They're not going to do anything in cases of fallopian tube damage, sperm counts of close to zero or the zillion other reasons why people resort to the services of fertility medicine.

Exactly right. I'm the PP who was unhapy about the fertility treatment racket. But the herbal/holistic remedy people are on the take also. I went to a highly regarded acupunturist who had both my husband and me paying for twice-weekly treatments, plus buying bogus herbs. Nothing worked.

Yes, we should have been more cautious with all of this. But we were desperate and everyone was telling us that THEY had the magic solution to our infertility.

Anyway, as I said, we do have a beautiful child. No one could put a value on her (and the fertility folks are counting on that). I'm just waiting for the next set of medical bills to start floating in, because my body is just destroyed after all of this.

[Anonymous]

pp, you act as if it is the fault of somebody else. Good luck with your child.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have to believe that there's something-- money, prestige-- that keeps doctors going back to work each day. Something other than a genuine desire to help people. Because a firm majority of doctors I encounter in this area are distant and condescending, and just plain rude. And I'm a super patient: well-read, compliant, respectful, etc. My dad's a doctor. I know how docs feel about being second-guessed or ignored altogether. Still, for all my pleasant demeanor, interest in my own care, etc, three out of four doctors I've met with don't make eye contact, grunt answers to my reasonable questions, and treat my body like an inanimate object. Am I to believe that a better salary would improve the quality of care? Why do they behave as if I have any control over the insurance payments? Frustrating.[/quote]

The problem is not the salary so much, but the amount of work that is required to maintain that minimal salary. I am a physician who no longer practices. When I was practicing in primary care, I made 110K seeing about 30 patients per day in the office plus whoever was in the hospital. I was working 11 hours a day, plus overnight every other week, plus an occasional Saturday clinic. Yes, I was cooked. And probably rude to some patients. If I had actually had time to spend with each patient and only had to see like 10 patients a day, I would have been so much happier. Heck I would have taken a pay cut to actually have time with my patients.

The problem is that you are on a treadmill to keep up with expenses in the face of lower insurance reimbursements -- so the way to make up for it is to see more and more patients. I would only go back to practicing if I worked for a practice that accepted no insurance.[/quote]

[quote] How did you make the decision to get out? I do not know how.....Read my story on 7/21/8:56


[/quote]
The decision was pretty easy. I was miserable, headed for divorce, had an ill parent that I needed to care for. And by the grace of God, found a non-clinical job, still medically related, with normal hours. It was the best decision I ever made.
If you are so unhappy, start looking for other jobs. You don't need a career counselor. Call a head hunter. Look on opm.gov for medical officer jobs with the federal government. Look in the want ads on the Washington Post, or in medical journals. My job was advertised in the washington post. As a pediatrician, you could work for an ER or urgent care facility and have normal, set hours with no call. Good luck to you.

[Anonymous]

I am pediatrician starting a concierge practice. Bascially you pay an annual or monthly retainer fee and you have me on call 24/7. It's not reimbursible from your insurance but you basically get much better care for your child. I am afraid that in the future what will happen is that as insurance payments stay stagnant that your insurance can be used to go see a nurse at the clinic down the street where there is a line down the block but if you want quality and timely access you are going to have to pay the physician out of pocket. I feel somewhat bad about this but I have a family to take care of and loans to pay back. I know you are pissed because you pay your insurance premium everymonth but we don't get that money. Insurance companies pay themselves first and their doctors second or third hand.

[Anonymous]

Wow.

...tell me again how our current healthcare scenario with private insurance companies is so dandy in this country?

[Anonymous]

Well, in the UK, the NHS clinic is the one with the line around the block. Everyone who is anyone has private insurance. It's very much a two-tiered system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, in the UK, the NHS clinic is the one with the line around the block. Everyone who is anyone has private insurance. It's very much a two-tiered system.

That is not the whole story. On the whole their system works better than the US system. US system is correctly described as the most expensive system with the least amount of service.

And child mortality is less in the UK, they also have mor kids vaccinated than the US. They have less C-sections, and higher birth survival rates.

I wonder why some people are so eager to criticize other systems that work and provide better service. What are you afraid of? Or is some wealthy hmo paying you to lobby?

The moral of the story seems to be that the doctors are not the ones making the money, the insurance companies are.

On the other hand many people call the US a promised land of doctors.
And the student loans that have been mentioned here? Most students studying medicine are the ones who went to the better schools, lived in the better areas, had the money to go to college and come from money, do not have to work while studying. Very few medical students are the proverbial poor and paying their own way for everything.

[Anonymous]

BTW, British doctors' salaries have soared in the last 10 years.
Also, medical students are coming from disadvantaged backgrounds. I feel sorry for them, they don't really get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, in the UK, the NHS clinic is the one with the line around the block. Everyone who is anyone has private insurance. It's very much a two-tiered system.

That is not the whole story. On the whole their system works better than the US system. US system is correctly described as the most expensive system with the least amount of service.

And child mortality is less in the UK, they also have mor kids vaccinated than the US. They have less C-sections, and higher birth survival rates.

I wonder why some people are so eager to criticize other systems that work and provide better service. What are you afraid of? Or is some wealthy hmo paying you to lobby?

The moral of the story seems to be that the doctors are not the ones making the money, the insurance companies are.

On the other hand many people call the US a promised land of doctors.
And the student loans that have been mentioned here? Most students studying medicine are the ones who went to the better schools, lived in the better areas, had the money to go to college and come from money, do not have to work while studying. Very few medical students are the proverbial poor and paying their own way for everything.

That is not true. I don't know ONE medical student except for myself whose parents paid, and mine did so only because they did not know that I could have taken out loans.
Also, don't think that babies will stop dying when we get socialized medicine. We also have a higher murder rate than Britain. There is violence in all parts of our society, some of it unfortunately affects on the young.
American doctors are afraid of their patients, and American patients can't be told what to do. Unless we get the crazy malpractice mess out of the way, patients and doctors will not be able to work together as a team. Malpractice is why we do so many c/sections.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, in the UK, the NHS clinic is the one with the line around the block. Everyone who is anyone has private insurance. It's very much a two-tiered system.

I just heard from a friend here in the US. Her husband has been out of work since September with a back injury. He needs surgery but his insuance company won't pay for it, claiming that the underlying cause is a pre-existing condition. They are on track to lose their home, and have no savings to pay for the surgery, and bad credit so no credit cards to pay for the surgery.

I think they would be happy to have to wait for treatment, versus what they are getting right now, which is having to wait for no treatment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
He needs surgery but his insuance company won't pay for it, claiming that the underlying cause is a pre-existing condition. They are on track to lose their home, and have no savings to pay for the surgery, and bad credit so no credit cards to pay for the surgery.

I think they would be happy to have to wait for treatment, versus what they are getting right now, which is having to wait for no treatment.

So sad. You pay taxes for 40 years and then uncle Sams shoves you in the gutter to die because being sick is a crime.

Anyway, talking about doctors salaries. With the HMO, the doctor gets paid for each patient that is on its list every month whether or not the patient visits. When the patient visits he gets the co pay, and the fee for the services from the doctor. In the end, the less services he gives his patients the more money he makes.
With the PPO, the doctor gets paid for every visit, and the copay.
Hospitals have a cost sharing plan with the insurance companies. In other words they assume part of the risk to make sure that costs do not go above a certain amount per year. So at the end of the year the hospital gets bonuses from the insurance company if costs have been low, and at other times hospitals will have to pay their share of the costs that are above amount X.

I do not feel that doctors are poor. They do work hard. A lot of work is paper work.

Yes, they studied for their degrees a few years more than others studied for theirs. That is still not enough to make them saints.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That is not true. I don't know ONE medical student except for myself whose parents paid, and mine did so only because they did not know that I could have taken out loans.
Malpractice is why we do so many c/sections.

Isn't it unethical for a doctor to choose a c/section when that is not necessary or in the best interest of the patient, but in the best interest of the malpractice insurance company? Sorry, can't help but feel the doctors do not know what they are doing.

While I agree that very few doctors do not have student loans, I also do not believe that there are that many sons of 'factory workers' etc that are paying their entire way themselves and are financing the whole trip with student loans.
Students might have student loans, but they are not poor. Some have loans, few have the hefty loans that you hear mentioned here.