To elaborate, how much money you make
IN THIS BIZ depends primarily on 4 things:
1) PAYER MIX: anesthesiologists are reimbursed for their services by many entities (assuming you are in a fee for service group where you eat what you kill and not an employee of a hospital or AMC).
Those
entities that pay you for the cases your group performs varies
DRASTICALLY
in how much they pay you.....Aetna insurance company may pay you $2000.00 for a multi level spine case with instrumentation and the same case covered by Medicare may pay $600.00, for example.
Government (medicare/medicaid/Tricare) pay dismal.
Private insurance companies typically pay much better than government programs.
How much better depends on where you live.
Some cases pay you in cash. Yep...
COLD HARD BENJAMINS.
Cash cases vary dramatically as well. Plastics cases don't pay much.
My gig does alotta bariatric surgery, the bulk of which are
private pay (the patient pays for it prior to the procedure). We do well on the bariatric cases.
Attorney cases (lawsuit...attorney pays for case.....lumbar disc or anterior cervical fusion....car wreck, etc) are lucrative.
2) THE TYPE OF CASES YOU DO
Spine surgery and total joints are lucrative for us in the commercial insurance/cash pay world. ENT/general surg cases/plastics are less so, for example.
3) VOLUME
Easy to understand...the more cases you do the more money you make.
4) WHERE YOU LIVE
Harder to understand but it is what it is. Insurance companies pay more in certain areas of the country than others.
I have the anesthesia contract at a physician owned boutique hospital where we accept private insurance only. No medicare/medicaid.
The bulk of our practice is spines, orthopedics, and bariatrics.
In summary,
PAYER MIX
THE TYPE OF CASES YOU DO
VOLUME
WHERE YOU LIVE IN THE U.S.
are the primary determinants of a fee for service anesthesiologist in this country concerning how much
BANK
you make.