About 3 years ago, our own Certified Medical Office Manager (and now co-blogger) Kelley Beloff put some major holes in the Myth of the Rich Doctor:
"I recently received a report stating that the average reimbursement of the average office visit code (99213) for physicians is $65.49. Yep, $65.49. That is all your physician gets for seeing you in a normal 15 minute appointment."
And out of that comes his overhead, including staff salaries, office rent, malpractice insurance premiums and, presumably, a little vig for himself.
Fast forward a bit, and we learn that not much has changed except, perhaps, a certain perception:
"What physicians are trying to tell us is that they don’t see themselves as necessarily any more responsible for health care costs than all of those stakeholders"
Which stakeholders include patients (among others) who are used to virtually immediate and unlimited access to health care. One wonders if there may be a correlation there with the cost of health insurance.
One problem, of course, comes immediately to mind: the only insurance product that effectively addresses this issue is about to be ObamaTaxed out of existence:
"Now, co-blogger Nate points out that "an HSA with anything short of max deductible and no contribution would pass," and that's a fair cop. But without the ability to sock away tax-advantaged dollars in anticipation of future claims, you're not talking "HSA" at all."
Kinda wish they'd read the thing, before they passed it.
"I recently received a report stating that the average reimbursement of the average office visit code (99213) for physicians is $65.49. Yep, $65.49. That is all your physician gets for seeing you in a normal 15 minute appointment."
And out of that comes his overhead, including staff salaries, office rent, malpractice insurance premiums and, presumably, a little vig for himself.
Fast forward a bit, and we learn that not much has changed except, perhaps, a certain perception:
"What physicians are trying to tell us is that they don’t see themselves as necessarily any more responsible for health care costs than all of those stakeholders"
Which stakeholders include patients (among others) who are used to virtually immediate and unlimited access to health care. One wonders if there may be a correlation there with the cost of health insurance.
One problem, of course, comes immediately to mind: the only insurance product that effectively addresses this issue is about to be ObamaTaxed out of existence:
"Now, co-blogger Nate points out that "an HSA with anything short of max deductible and no contribution would pass," and that's a fair cop. But without the ability to sock away tax-advantaged dollars in anticipation of future claims, you're not talking "HSA" at all."
Kinda wish they'd read the thing, before they passed it.
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