Doctors who work both in Hospitals and private practice

[FightingIrish01]

Hey,

Sorry for the additional salary question, but I was just curious about stats. I am not making any assessment of the field by its salary but am just trying to obtain comparative values for the different specialities and professions in medicine.


Anyways, I know a doctor who works as an cardiologist in a big hospital in the mornings and then works at his private practice in the evening until 8:00 PM. Does he make two salaries and does that sum up to nearly twice the amount of money?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[BigRedPremed]

Hey,

Anyways, I know a doctor who works as an cardiologist in a big hospital in the mornings and then works at his private practice in the evening until 8:00 PM. Does he make two salaries and does that sum up to nearly twice the amount of money?

Please think this through...and use some logic in the process.

A person who works at Burger King in the morning and McDonald's in the afternoon makes twice as much as someone who works at Burger King full-time? No.

 

[PeepshowJohnny]

We're going to need to know a bit about what your guys duties are besides he works in a big hospital in the morning and then has a private practice. I mean, its conceivable he's a run of the mill private practice guy who sees his (or his group's) hospitalized patients in the hospital in the morning, and then does outpatient visits in the evening at night.

 

[FightingIrish01]

I didn't intend to compare it with working at McDonalds, but they are two different working environments and perhaps I made an extreme judgement of "twice" the salary, but perhaps 1.5 times sounds reasonable

 

[shotdiscus]

Has this guy told you thats what he does or is this just an observation? My dad's a cardiologist and while he isn't a "staff" cardiologist at the hospital, his group leases office space connected to the hospital and he is frequently working in the hospital doing rounds on his patients, heart caths, etc.

 

[MossPoh]

Has this guy told you thats what he does or is this just an observation? My dad's a cardiologist and while he isn't a "staff" cardiologist at the hospital, his group leases office space connected to the hospital and he is frequently working in the hospital doing rounds on his patients, heart caths, etc.

What he said. It is often times more convienent to just be in the hospital since that is where a lot of your patients are! It really depends on the arrangement set up.....Where I was they had offices off of the hospital campus, but I think it was more for billing purposes and random things than anything else. The vast majority of their time was spent in the shiney new heart center that the hospital built for them..some places don't have in-house cardiologists as well as private practice...they just have these nice little gigs going on that kind of puts them in between.

 

[Law2Doc]

Hey,

Sorry for the additional salary question, but I was just curious about stats. I am not making any assessment of the field by its salary but am just trying to obtain comparative values for the different specialities and professions in medicine.


Anyways, I know a doctor who works as an cardiologist in a big hospital in the mornings and then works at his private practice in the evening until 8:00 PM. Does he make two salaries and does that sum up to nearly twice the amount of money?

Most people who work like this aren't actually manning two jobs. The practice group likely makes arrangements with local hospital to service their XYZ department. The practice group has both a private location and the partners also staff one or more local hospitals. So eg the doctors of eg the Smallville Orthopedics Group also staff the Smallville Memorial Hospital orthopedics department, and doctors from that group trade off who will work at the hospital at what time. Lets the hospital avoid having to recruit and play employer to orthopods and lets the group have a steady stream of business. But you don't get two salaries -- you are working for the Orthopedics group. And the patients by and large all pay through insurance, so you depend on reimbursements. So you get paid by number of patients you see, procedures you do and your ability to earn more is dependant on hours in the day. Also since under these deals you cannot turn away hospital patients, many who won't pay, or are on medicaid, medicare or perhaps less lucrative reimbursement programs, you probably earn less per patient than if you exclusively were private. You are counting on volume from the hospital to make up the difference.

Honestly, with your past bunch of posts inquiring about I banking, how much you can earn this way or that, and about folks your parents know who are millionaire FPs, it kind of sounds like medicine is not really what interests you. Don't go down this road if your main goal is to be wealthy. Only become a doctor if you actually have an interest in practicing medicine -- if not there are always better, shorter or more lucrative paths to your target. You really have to want to be a clinician to go this route. Money is very comfortable for physicians, but you won't be living like a rock star on this career path anymore.

 

[xcgirl]

While what all the above posters said is likely true, there are some scenarios where you are employed by both the hospital and your private practice group.
I know a psychiatrist who spends 80% of his time seeing private practice patients. The other 20% is spent doing "academic" pursuits, including being on an adcom, teaching med students/residents, etc. (I don't believe that he does research). While I don't know exactly how much he makes, I know it is significantly more than someone employed purely by a hospital.
This is a common arrangement at some teaching hospitals, but occurs less frequently in some of the bigger name schools. Each department generally has the discretion to determine if physicians can see private practice patients for part of their time.

 

[Law2Doc]

The other 20% is spent doing "academic" pursuits, including being on an adcom, teaching med students/residents, etc. (I don't believe that he does research).

Bear in mind that clinicians who serve on adcom generally do it for free. And so too a lot of people who come in from their practices to teach a class session or two or advise students/residents at the clinical level. (At least the ones I know.) So this 20% could very well be purely for CV, not salary purposes.

 

[xcgirl]

Bear in mind that clinicians who serve on adcom generally do it for free. And so too a lot of people who come in from their practices to teach a class session or two or advise students/residents at the clinical level. (At least the ones I know.) So this 20% could very well be purely for CV, not salary purposes.

I know for sure that this md does both parts for payment, he used to work in the same hospital where I volunteer, but left because of the salary benefits of splitting his time between private practice and academia.
There are probably physicians who do the academic parts purely for cv, though.