Medical School HQ Podcast, a must listen for pre-med students, recently released a new podcast about the physician compensation report. This report surveyed many doctors from various specialties inquiring about salary and job satisfaction.
Interestingly, rheumatology, is the specialty that increased the most in compensation from the previous year, with a 15% increase! This might be due to the increased popularity of talk in food allergies, such as the gluten free trend and dairy allergies. Nephrology had the biggest decrease with a 8% decline. This is surprising to me, as I have been hearing about many new kidney disease and dialysis centers opening up.
Among all physicians, self-employed physicians made more with $281,000 than employees with $220,000. The ratio is much smaller among family practice physicians $188,000: $180,000 with self-employed physicians making more. It will be interesting to see how this ratio changes next year as the effects of the Affordable Care Act should be more evident. With a much higher percentage of the population insured, it would seem to reduce the number of patients who choose to pay out of pocket for treatment.
One disturbing trend, while small, is that the average time spent with patients is decreasing among primary care practitioners. Out of the five options, 13-16 minutes was the most common time span spent with their patients. This is discomforting, especially when considering how few times throughout the year most people visit their primary care physician. However, physicians are required to thoroughly master the physical exam and be highly skilled in quickly looking for clues that might lead to any possible diseases. With much practice, 13-16 minutes may be adequate time to address the patients concerns.
The article can be found here:
Physician Compensation Report 2014
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