The concept of FIRE in medicine seems to stem mostly from burnout. Before I retire I would much rather make major changes to the way I practice (ie reduce work hours, eliminate hassles of my work, outsource etc). While these may reduce my income, I could continue practicing indefinitely!
Not really. Nobody’s giving you that $1 mil straight out of fellowship in ophtho. So you have to work for several years at a negative income to start you own practice, take call everyday, and build it up or join a practice at a low starting salary and hope the partners don’t screw you over when partnership comes. Then come all the payments to buy in to the ASC and partnership. By the time you’re making a 7 figure income you’ve already put in many years of hard work, and then are you going to just quit? You’re also super busy and being a young partner and trying to do part time doesn’t work that well in ophtho.
Okay, challenge accepted. What percentage of your gross are you saving?
The huge advantage of saving a large proportion of your income is that is also decreases your habitual spending down to a reasonable level. If you make $500,000, but spend $450,000, not only are you not saving enough, but you are also making it impossible to sustain your spending in the long term.
Agreed. Jeff bezos is working 1,117,345 times harder than his workers, people need to just work harder there’s nothing else that’s needed..I don’t understand why people don’t get that..nothing to see here folks just work harder
Maybe he is smarter than his competitors...
Are you calling and letting these doctors know or reporting them to the board?Ophthalmology’s got a reputation for smart and hard workers...
Trump reportedly to pardon Dr. Salomon Melgen, local Medicare fraudster
Dr. Salomon Melgen, who operated wildly successful eye clinics from Delray Beach to Port St. Lucie, was convicted in 2018 in connection with what federal prosecutors described as the biggest Medicare fraud in the nation’s history.www.google.com
some people seem to be getting defensive about schistosomiasis’s post but there is definitely crappy medicine being practiced out there because people are seeing patients too quickly. Examples are surgeons doing cataract surgery but missing the wet AMD (it wasn’t a white cataract) or putting multifocal lenses in patients with underlying AMD or optic neuropathy. I’ve seen several of these patients this month.
That’s a great idea, in theory, but unless the docs are killing and maiming people, nothing will happen. Listen to the Dr Death podcasts for a good example of how far a doc has to be bad before the medical board (or legal means) step in to intervene
Doesn’t mean you don’t fulfill your obligation to report
You’re not an eye doctor I’m guessing? These things are commonplace, they’re not easy to prove, and they aren’t things that the board would do anything about. Some people just have crappy depth perception and can’t see macular edema on exam (or don’t look carefully enough). I do encourage my colleagues to get an OCT prior to cataract surgery but that’s not the “standard of care” yet. It’s more about if you want to go the extra mile for your patients, in my opinion, and do tests that you, sometimes, can’t get reimbursed for.
Funny you say that. I am a retinal specialist, know and have met a ton of other retinal specialists, and find very few who I would consider unethical. Since the beginning of med school, I’ve always been of the mind set “you’ll make plenty of money no matter what you do so make sure you always do the right thing”.
Not sure what specialty you are in......I’m guessing it’s NOT ophthalmology........but I‘d love to hear some of the interesting cases you’ve turned into your medical board. Inform us all so you can set the example of how we all should strive to be. As someone else said, just because a person practices different than you does not mean they are necessarily being unethical. If you don’t like the way a doc is practicing, why don’t you go to that doc and say “hey, can you explain this to me?” before opening a legal quagmire on them.
What would you say is your split in income between clinic visits, injections in clinic, cataract surgeries, and blepharoplasties? I'm not ophtho but have always been impressed with the volume of patients you guys see in clinic!
I can’t speak for others, especially comprehensive ophthalmologists, but the key point to see a lot of patients in a day is staffing. Many of us employ scribes to help with EMR so that we the doc just go into the room, examine the pt, tell the scribe what changes to make in the chart, and then on to the next patient. Also, lots of small procedures (injections) throughout the clinic day as well. These are not super time consuming as you are generally walking in (also with a scribe), reviewing the scans, deciding on follow up, injecting the patient, and then walking back out while the staff handles the cleaning of the patient’s eye out and walking them to the check out area.
What's your net pay on 2.25 mil?
If he is doing enough femto lasik and premium lenses it is. Hard to get to that volume though. And the hours worked have to be jam packed and productive.
