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Income inequality among physicians should matter to patients
by Manoj Jain, MD, MPH on November 27th, 2012in Physician
Recently, a medical student confided in me a thought that few in our profession would dare say aloud: “We may have come to medical school to help people, but we choose our specialty careers based on potential salaries.”
This in part explains why the most-prized residencies are in fields such as dermatology and radiology, whose procedures generate high fees. According to a physician survey by the Medical Group Management Association, the median income of specialists is nearly twice that of primary-care physicians — $384,000 vs. $212,000. The highest-paid gastroenterologists make about $846,000 a year; the highest-paid internists make about $352,000.
As in most professions, it has long been true in medicine that specialists earn more than generalists. They train longer and in many cases pay higher insurance rates, but these factors don’t fully explain the chasm. We’ve now reached a critical point where the income disparity is harming the general population."...............
That's funny, when I go into specialist offices and gp's and ask for the rates I get the same answer....and you know what it is.
This is called market economics, and it is a good thing, it is the same reason you want price gauging for generators after the storm if you have a baby that is on a life saving device that needs power. You only want to be in competition for that generator with other people that value it highly, if it was cheap, the first ass on the street is going to buy the generator to keep is ice cold, when you want it to save your kid.
If a cancer specialist was cheap, we would all go get screenings all the time and the people that need them, that had cancer, would not be able to get in and fewer people would want to enter the field and help them. No regulator on the planet could develop such an elegant system as the free market to make sure people that supply could meet demand. High prices for specialists saves lives.
The chasm is easily explained by supply and demand, pretty basic. You ask for it, I do to.
