Pay Expectation vs Reality

[Mitch Connor]

Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse here. I'm an OMS-II getting ready to move into third year leaning towards FM at this point as I want to pursue DPC. I have met lots of people that crap on FM for various reasons but in the last week I have met two doctors wives at church who have told me how poorly paid there IM husbands were paid in primary care (outpatient IM). One of them reported being paid as low as 50k before switching to hospital medicine. I don't have any more info than that as I have not had a chance to talk to these docs directly.

I don't come from lots of money and I didn't go back to school at this point in my life to become the world richest doctor. I value professional freedom and lifestyle above all else. Everything I have read on SDN and the web is that FM pay is generally 200k-250k with some making a bit more than this. I see that as being plenty of money. I have no need for multiple homes or a Mercedes.

Am I being naive here, or is it more likely these people made some poor decisions regarding employment?

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[hallowmann]

Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse here. I'm an OMS-II getting ready to move into third year leaning towards FM at this point as I want to pursue DPC. I have met lots of people that crap on FM for various reasons but in the last week I have met two doctors wives at church who have told me how poorly paid there IM husbands were paid in primary care (outpatient IM). One of them reported being paid as low as 50k before switching to hospital medicine. I don't have any more info than that as I have not had a chance to talk to these docs directly.

I don't come from lots of money and I didn't go back to school at this point in my life to become the world richest doctor. I value professional freedom and lifestyle above all else. Everything I have read on SDN and the web is that FM pay is generally 200k-250k with some making a bit more than this. I see that as being plenty of money. I have no need for multiple homes or a Mercedes.

Am I being naive here, or is it more likely these people made some poor decisions regarding employment?

When you first start your practice, you should assume you will not make much for multiple years, and most people will work UC or some other per diem or part time work on the side while building up their practice.

Those "doctors wives" were likely talking either about parttime, many decades ago, or residency.

If you want to be employed FM in virtually all states, you could easily make $175k-$250k working 4-5 days a week. Now whether it will be easy, fun, not require "after hours work", etc. will all vary, but there is no deficit in jobs in those ranges.

 

[Mitch Connor]

When you first start your practice, you should assume you will not make much for multiple years, and most people will work UC or some other per diem or part time work on the side while building up their practice.

Those "doctors wives" were likely talking either about parttime, many decades ago, or residency.

If you want to be employed FM in virtually all states, you could easily make $175k-$250k working 4-5 days a week. Now whether it will be easy, fun, not require "after hours work", etc. will all vary, but there is no deficit in jobs in those ranges.

Interesting point. Both docs have been practicing for 15-20 years.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

Interesting point. Both docs have been practicing for 15-20 years.

If they were getting paid that poorly then they were doing something wrong. My wife is outpatient IM and makes a bit over 250k/year working 4 days per week.

 

[smq123]

I graduated from medical school in 2009, 13 years ago.

Even 13 years ago, $50,000 for a full time outpatient primary care physician was insanely, laughably low.

Were they practicing in a different country??

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

I graduated from medical school in 2009, 13 years ago.

Even 13 years ago, $50,000 for a full time outpatient primary care physician was insanely, laughably low.

Were they practicing in a different country??

I made more than that my first year of residency (2010).

 

[NITRAS]

If you started your own clinic, and it didn’t get busy, and/or poorly run, you can make that much.

Otherwise, the wives really had no idea what they were talking about.

 

[FamilymedMD]

My guess is the IM doc's wife was accurate about the $50K because he was in his own practice and it was slowly dying with sinking revenue and climbing expenses. My previous traditional third party paid, fee for service FM group practice struggled with that for years while most of our peers either retired or went belly up and became hospital clinic employees.

BTW, I'm DPC now and DPC docs make about the same as employed docs AFAIK but with better lifestyle and far more control over our lives.