Doctors very much charge for time. By definition, their work doesn't scale. But because of their immense training, they get to charge _a lot_ for that time.
The same is true in law. Just because you have 10,000 hours of training doesn't mean you aren't billing by the hour.
This is why there are many many doctor and attorney millionaires and very few doctor/attorney billionaires.
Doctors get paid a lot because they artificially restrict how many can become new doctors every year (atleast in the US.) Not that I envy them with their crazy work hours.
I'd like to think that there are diminishing returns, but in my experience, the biggest complaint about doctors (and from doctors) is the lack of time they get to spend on a patient. It would stand to reason that a doctor that can spend an hour talking to you, researching your condition and history, collaborate with colleagues across disciplines is going to have a much greater impact than one who sees you for 5 minutes.
And it costs quite a lot to get that level of care.
Doctors are highly specialized mechanics for the human body. The reason they can work the hours they do is because most of what they do is not creative and can be done on basically autopilot.
MDs also work in a profession with a fairly unique quality: you always get paid more for doing more work, and the work is more or less completely prepackaged into self-contained units for you - i.e. a GP seeing patients more or less breaks their day into a pattern of independently compensated, 15-30 minute slots.
Its really strange how much punishment doctors seem to receive and how much they're willing to take. The hours alone would be laughable in any other industry.
Well, doctors have to go to school for a very long time, especially to specialize. Then they go through residency programs. In all their general education before practicing on their own tends to be about 10 years more than the average American. Which is 10 years less income and 10 years more of expenses/loans. Most specialties cause doctors to be on call. Working in hospitals creates difficult hours.
And with all that we have a shortage of doctors in the US.
So, supply, demand, cost, working lifetime to make up those costs, hours, volume of paperwork to deal with insurance, even more for Medicaid, malpractice insurance and now the shift to EMR.
Doctors pay is the most justified thing in the medical industry. Until we have an excess supply of doctors that isn't going to change.
The other costs in medical are where the story really is.
> Explain????
Company provided health care became a standard thing from union demands years ago. Never allowing individuals to tax deduct insurance costs removed insurance from the consumer market, purchased for millions of people without any choice from the employees about who provides it and this became the primary mechanism for paying for health care.
Individuals are 2 steps removed from the costs of care, so what do they care if a hospital stay cost $30,000 if $29,000 is covered?
That's how your costs rise. Medical costs haven't been even remotely participating in the free market for decades.
they can only scale at most linearly, with the number of hours they work.
A financier can scale multiplicatively, because the amount of the monies they deal with can increase without "extra work". The multiplicative nature means the more capital you have access to, the more money you get to make, which approaches exponential at some point.
And in the end, the financier speculating on the markets can affect many more people than the doctor ever can in their life.
Doctors do not get paid for being on call or responding to phone calls, unlike attorneys. And after assuming a mountain of debt (med school tuition >70k, intern and residency salary 30-40k) you are privileged to get a job for 90k. And you burned 7-10 of the best years of your life AFTER UNIVERSITY (70k tuition) in school.
Nothing stops people from being paid more than they are worth. Doctors in the US are a classic example of an industry that captures regulations which enables them to artificially limit supply and over charge for their services.
If you're willing to work doctor hours doing valuable things, you're going to make much more comparable salaries to doctors.
Doctors work absurd hours for years, then many go on to keep working absurd hours.
Doctors who don't run practices don't make the same paychecks, and again, same works for coders. If you don't run a consulting house, don't plan on making 200-500k a year.
I dont follow. Do you mean doctors are rich so they dont have to care? Last I checked a doctor needs 10 years since high school to make any real money. A fresh grad in SV needs 4, sometimes 3. By the time the medical student can legally be called doctor, you and I are already making "obscene money" by their standard
I don’t know. Doctors work 80+ hour weeks, calls and holidays making $50,000 a year in their twenties and early 30s after paying for the privilege of grueling med school. Then they come out, maybe work 60-hours but still have the call, weekends and holidays. Then people kind of smugly think salaries like$300,000 a year is a lot. Well yeah; it’s-a lot but it took aheluva time getting to that point making about minimum wage and once they’re finished with training is not like they’re working 40 hour weeks with weekends and holidays off like most of us.
I'm sure there are specialists who make $600k a year. At least around here, primary care docs make around $200k max. Even if they're making $600k, that doesn't even begin to explain why hospital costs are so high. Some napkin math says $600k/year, 52 weeks/year, 40 hours/week is about $288.46 per hour. If you spent 10 hours that day with a very highly compensated doctor, that's less than $3k. So where does the other 5k of that bill come from?
The same is true in law. Just because you have 10,000 hours of training doesn't mean you aren't billing by the hour.
This is why there are many many doctor and attorney millionaires and very few doctor/attorney billionaires.
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