1. Do MDs make more than DOs?
-Lets compare apples to apples such as family practice.
2. Also, is it harder to find jobs for DO in non rural areas thus making it harder to earn a higher income?
3. Are DO's allowed to team up with MDs? Lets say work together in the same complex.
Thanks.
Chocolate Bear is correct.
Answer 1: NO
Reason: Physicians are paid based on their billing (or per pre-negotiated contract with the hospital plus productivity bonuses, like hospitalists). There is no seperate billing code or EM modifier for MD vs DO. An acute level 3 office visit is paid the same by insurance/medicaid/HMO whether you are an US MD, DO, or IMG. A inpatient critical care billing (billed as spending 1 hr with patient on critical care issues) is paid the same. A colonoscopy is paid the same, whether it is done by a general surgeon or by a GI doc (no matter if it is done by an MD or DO). If it is a rare case of the hospital paying the doc a fixed salary - then the hospital have NO incentive to pay DOs less than MDs. If a hospital were to do that, the solution is simple - DOs will avoid that hospital and hospitals will have recruitment issues. All hospitals (from rural community hospital to big city academic meccas) have recruitment and retention issues and spend a significant amount of time recruiting (and trying to retain current physicians as to not lose them to another facility).
Answer 2: NO
Reason: Numbers may be deceptive but as a percentage, there are more DO schools in rural regions compare to MD schools in rural regions. There are more AOA residencies in rural regions (as a percentage) compare to ACGME residencies. But you will still find DOs in cities all across the US. It will be hard for anyone (whether it is USMD, DO or IMG) to enter saturated markets that are in demand (downtown LA, NYC, SF, Chicago) and quite easy to enter markets with huge demands (inner city LA, NYC, SF, Chicago, rural regions).
Just because you work in a rural region might not necessarily mean you make less than urban/suburban. If you work rural with 100% of your patient base uninsured or on medicaid, then you will make less. But with Medicaid/Medicare and some HMO increasing emphasis on rural underserve area, there may be some EM modifier you can submit with your billing code that will increase reimbursement for same level of service/procedure. Medicare also reimburse for home visits if properly documented and billed.
Answer 3: No. There was a recent temporarily restraining order, upheld on appeals by the 7th circuit court of appeals, that prohibit all DOs from coming within any MD within 200 feet. Violation will face $250 fine per incident and jail time. It has certainly made residency a lot more challenging for me.
Just joking. Not only are DOs and MDs allow to work together (I don't even see how such law can be passed and survive a constitutional challenge), but DOs are also on faculty at major academic centers (Harvard, Mayo, UCSF, Hopkins, etc). They are attendings at ACGME residencies, teaching MD residents and MD students.
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