Medical field here: The vast majority of us are not in it for the money. Physicians have to spend 3 to 9 years after medical school working for a wage that works out to about $5/hour to gain certification and a medical license in their specialty. And that’s after 8 to 12 years of undergraduate/graduate/doctorate education that basically has to be paid for with loans unless they’re in the military or come from a rich family. So, yes, physicians do make high salaries once they’re established, but there was a lot of work and sacrifice to get to that point, and very few people are masochistic enough to put themselves through that just for the money.
Also, the most expensive parts of a medical appointment/surgery/ER visit etc is the administrative overhead, inflated prices of drugs and supplies, and insurance company bullshit. Very little money from that price tag actually makes it to the healthcare workers. Your average EMT on an ambulance makes between $13-20/hour depending on the state minimum wage.
If you have a problem with your healthcare costs, that’s something to take up with your representatives in government, not the EMTs, CNAs, nurses, and physicians providing your care.
I’m in my third year of medical school, so I’ve just started my clinical rotations, but one of the things that shows up on almost every reference table for physicians regarding treatment options is information on the price for the patient. I’m rotating in a family medicine clinic right now, and we pretty frequently prescribe the best possible treatment, and then when the pharmacy runs it through the patient’s insurance and finds out how much it’s going to cost, we then start working down the list of next-best alternatives until we can find something the patient can afford. Because there are so many different insurance plans out there, we have no idea how much something is going to cost until the insurance tells us.
Unfortunately, most health insurance plans have a separate sub-company manage the pharmacy benefits and we have absolutely zero way of accessing their systems. It would be lovely if we could see what your insurance would cover immediately as we prescribe it, but that also runs into the problem of us not having any control over the actual pharmacy and their billing and pricing.
Medical field here: The vast majority of us are not in it for the money. Physicians have to spend 3 to 9 years after medical school working for a wage that works out to about $5/hour to gain certification and a medical license in their specialty. And that’s after 8 to 12 years of undergraduate/graduate/doctorate education that basically has to be paid for with loans unless they’re in the military or come from a rich family. So, yes, physicians do make high salaries once they’re established, but there was a lot of work and sacrifice to get to that point, and very few people are masochistic enough to put themselves through that just for the money.
Also, the most expensive parts of a medical appointment/surgery/ER visit etc is the administrative overhead, inflated prices of drugs and supplies, and insurance company bullshit. Very little money from that price tag actually makes it to the healthcare workers. Your average EMT on an ambulance makes between $13-20/hour depending on the state minimum wage.
If you have a problem with your healthcare costs, that’s something to take up with your representatives in government, not the EMTs, CNAs, nurses, and physicians providing your care.
Removed by mod
I’m in my third year of medical school, so I’ve just started my clinical rotations, but one of the things that shows up on almost every reference table for physicians regarding treatment options is information on the price for the patient. I’m rotating in a family medicine clinic right now, and we pretty frequently prescribe the best possible treatment, and then when the pharmacy runs it through the patient’s insurance and finds out how much it’s going to cost, we then start working down the list of next-best alternatives until we can find something the patient can afford. Because there are so many different insurance plans out there, we have no idea how much something is going to cost until the insurance tells us.
<cough cough> single payer <cough cough>
Yes. This exactly.
Removed by mod
Unfortunately, most health insurance plans have a separate sub-company manage the pharmacy benefits and we have absolutely zero way of accessing their systems. It would be lovely if we could see what your insurance would cover immediately as we prescribe it, but that also runs into the problem of us not having any control over the actual pharmacy and their billing and pricing.