Doctors Making 3-6 Million

[603pharmacy]

Hi all,

I'm currently an undergrad freshman and I was talking with my Dad who's an accountant for a private firm and he said one of his clients is a Cardiologist. After much prying, he finally told me a general range of how much he made... 6-7 million...

The only other client he has that's a doctor is a Plastic/Cosmetic Surgeon who makes somewhere around 3 million...


My question is, how is this even possible? Private practice? Do these two just have impeccable business qualities and have multiple practices?

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[darkjedi]

Revenue is different than net income. Cardiologists in their heyday used to earn millions annually on the regular, but it is much more rare now.

 

[hogfan12]

If they own multiple practices it is very possible. I personally know of a radiologist, that is over 7 private practices, that makes over 5 million a year.

 

[masaraksh]

Well thats because medicine is pretty much a gigantic, bottomless gold mine after you finish med school. You're pretty much constantly collecting $$$. Sure there is some time seeing patients, reading x-rays, performing surgeries, administrative work, etc. but aside from that minor stuff its pretty much a gravy train.

 

[masaraksh]

Revenue is different than net income. Cardiologists in their heyday used to earn millions annually on the regular, but it is much more rare now.

I think OP was referring to income (pre-tax most likely) of the individual physician, not the practice (revenue).

 

[Mad Jack]

I think OP was referring to income (pre-tax most likely) of the individual physician, not the practice (revenue).

Those figures are far more likely to be revenue than income. There are a lot of cardiology practices that gross those sorts of numbers, but after expenses and taxes, net income is almost always in the six figures. The only cardiologists that are making seven figs either have multiple physicians and midlevels working under them in a practice they own or runs a business on the side.

Plastics is a different story. If he's in cosmetic plastics and has a good reputation, seven figures net is totally doable, but not very common.

 

[circulus vitios]

He owns a large practice with several physicians working under him. Each employed physician is paid a fraction of what is billed. There's no way he could possibly make that much money by himself.

 

[DermViser]

Hi all,

I'm currently an undergrad freshman and I was talking with my Dad who's an accountant for a private firm and he said one of his clients is a Cardiologist. After much prying, he finally told me a general range of how much he made... 6-7 million...

The only other client he has that's a doctor is a Plastic/Cosmetic Surgeon who makes somewhere around 3 million...

My question is, how is this even possible? Private practice? Do these two just have impeccable business qualities and have multiple practices?

There's a difference between billing and income. Try to learn the difference.

 

[603pharmacy]

His net income was 3 million. That was after taxes and everything else that was taken out. He was bringing home 3 million to his wife...

 

[alpinism]

Hi all,

I'm currently an undergrad freshman and I was talking with my Dad who's an accountant for a private firm and he said one of his clients is a Cardiologist. After much prying, he finally told me a general range of how much he made... 6-7 million...

The only other client he has that's a doctor is a Plastic/Cosmetic Surgeon who makes somewhere around 3 million...


My question is, how is this even possible? Private practice? Do these two just have impeccable business qualities and have multiple practices?

The vast majority of physicians who make over 1 million per year do so because of patent royalties from medical devices or from doing consultant work with pharmaceutical companies.

While some private practice physicians do pull in over a million, its extremely rare overall.

As an example, probably 10% of our orthopedics faculty pull in over a million per year due to patent royalties.

WSJ article: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703395204576024023361023138

 

[Spinach Dip]

The simple explanation is that this cardiologist is making millions by running a business, most likely because he owns numerous surgi-centers and has many other cardiologists/nurses/etc working under him.

 

[Xenoblade]

Well thats because medicine is pretty much a gigantic, bottomless gold mine after you finish med school. You're pretty much constantly collecting $$$. Sure there is some time seeing patients, reading x-rays, performing surgeries, administrative work, etc. but aside from that minor stuff its pretty much a gravy train.

AFTER you finish medical school (assuming you get in), I want you to come back and read this statement.

 

[Narmerguy]

AFTER you finish medical school (assuming you get in), I want you to come back and read this statement.

Methinks you missed his point.

 

[Xenoblade]

Methinks you missed his point.

In my defense: sarcasm is hard to get when reading text.

 

[Doctor Bob]

We had a cardiologist who netted a few million a year; he owned the building that the big cardiology group worked in so the group paid him rent. He also was one of the founding partners so got dividend payments too. He was an interventionalist as well and cathed people 6 days a week. All in all he got more money from the business side of his practice than the medicine side, but still made enough that after taxes he was a yearly multi-millionaire.

The rest of the people in his group weren't doing nearly as well, so he's the exception rather than the rule.

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

Well thats because medicine is pretty much a gigantic, bottomless gold mine after you finish med school. You're pretty much constantly collecting $$$. Sure there is some time seeing patients, reading x-rays, performing surgeries, administrative work, etc. but aside from that minor stuff its pretty much a gravy train.

You're going to be sorely disappointed. Medicine is an odd field in that the minimum "guaranteed" pay is higher than virtually any other career, but the catch is that the salary doesn't advance much from where you start. Most doctors earn in the $150-$300k range. Surgeons obviously have higher pay, but it's still rare to see a surgeon make more than $1mil/year, much less even approach that. The egregiously high paid physicians like the ones OP is talking about don't make most of their money from medicine; rather, they're businessmen first and physicians second. They own practices, and in the case of OP's physicians, even own multiple practices. The vast majority of their income is coming from being a business owner, not a doctor.

So you see, it's business where space is the limit on your earning potential, the catch being that the core of the earth is your minimum earning potential. Pretty much any time you hear of someone getting insanely rich, it's either because they hit the lottery or something like it (eg: make a one-off invention that sells for an exorbitant sum), or because they applied their skills to some area of business. For example, all those rich Silicon Valley folks aren't wealthy because of their technical skills; there are many extremely talented coders who will never achieve anything more than middle or upper middle class status, because normal tech jobs don't pay millions of dollars. Rather, they're business owners or guys who got into a start-up before it went IPO. So if money is what you're after, business is what you want, not medicine.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

His net income was 3 million. That was after taxes and everything else that was taken out. He was bringing home 3 million to his wife...

Then he is in literally the top 0.1% of all physicians for take home pay.

 

[neuroace]

I've always wondered the max no. of medical clinics a physician could feasibly own.