•••quote:•••Originally posted by drmoon:
•I don't care about money.•••••Notwithstanding the timely and appropriate advice of johnM and Bee, I think this statement might become your undoing if you continue to practice medicine with this philosophy.
While it may be untrue of more rural practices, family practices are rapidly being bought up by major medical centers, or they are at least buying into major medical centers. This means that as a family practice physician, you'll be performing fewer and fewer billable procedures and suffer from capitation blues. The saddest example of this has been with an FP I rotated with last year. He performed everything from gram stains to sigmoidoscopies. He performed all his female patients' Pap smears; he did myringotomies; he saw all generations. Now, he refers patients to the hospital that bought his practice to get blood work; no one under 60 gets a Pap smear at his office; his basement is filled with equipment that he can no longer use. His staff is burdened with paperwork; he spends 10 minutes with a patient and then the next 15 minutes on the phone with insurance providers and other patients.
"So what?" you say. "This is occurring everywhere in medicine." True, but when you go from making $250,000 a year to $200,000, you might be able to accept such changes that occur. But, when you go from $120,000 to $70,000, it's a different ball game.
Yes, go into the field of medicine that you want. But, be honest with yourself. Many of us have >$150,000 in medical school and college debt. Don't forget children. Don't forget the mortgage. Don't forget the car. Don't forget the diamond ring. Don't forget the wedding and honeymoon. Things are more likely to get worse than better in the next 10 years.
****'s expensive, man...Marry rich, as my mom says.
You didn't go to medical school to work 80-100 hours per week, earn $80 Gs, and spend the rest of your time dictating and playing joust with insurance companies.