I unapologetically admit that I am in admiration of those that decide to make the effort to become doctors. I have been fortunate that I have known many good doctors and a few great ones in my life. The Family Practice physician whom I have seen for the last 14-15 years is one of the two best I have met. He is too busy and has to handle more patients because it is easy for the insurance companies and the government to keep reducing the amount paid per patient for Family Practice physicians. In addition to his workload, he must deal with frustrated people who complain about waiting, the costs and insurance coverage. I feel somewhat guilty when I make appointments because I know that he is under-compensated for his time and has many other patients to see and works too many hours.
It makes me wonder why anyone would actually try to become a doctor today and put up with people like us. If you have a reasonably good doctor and feel like complaining about his service and think he is making a lot of money, consider this:
The education and years required to become a physician are staggering.
4 or more years of undergraduate school, 4 years of medical school and 3 to 8 years of internship and residency, depending upon the specialty. After residency or a few years of practice, a final examination must be passed to obtain certification in a specialty.
They have now given up 12-15 years in which they could have been working and making a living. A Family Practice physician is fortunate to make $140,000 the first 2 years of practice. I know that is a lot of money, but here is the problem. In addition to the lost income for many years, they must now develop a practice, buy equipment, pay for a retirement package, malpractice insurance and cover a group of nurses and office staff to handle insurance claims and patients.
Most of us have jobs in which any mistakes are a setback or inconvenience. Doctors must deal with life and death decisions with each patient and have to decide quickly who needs to have additional tests or procedures. A mistake can be very costly, and good doctors are aware of that. Also, there are the patients who have emergencies and the doctors must take time away from their family to attend to a crisis; and most work more than 60 hours per week.
Our health care system is built upside down today and that is the reason for excessive costs. Insurance companies are willing to pay for expensive procedures at the same time they are reducing the amount paid for office visits to doctors. At the same time the politicians are talking about reducing costs for health care with "preventive" medicine. If we are going to work toward prevention, the most logical place to do that is during appointments with doctors. Now, unless a doctor performs procedures in his office, he will be forced to see more patients for income.
Patients must also start becoming as educated as possible about their medical procedures and the positives and negatives of each. The doctor's visits are where that has to happen.
I am convinced that paying doctors twice as much as is currently allowed for office consultation and evaluation would drastically reduce medical costs and will be sharing some actual examples of saving tens of thousands of dollars during my recent appointments in the next few posts.
In the meanwhile, if you have a doctor in whom you trust, please cut him/her some slack.
TVP

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