Primary Care Docs making more than Surgery or Subspecialties?

[disque71]

I always hear about how surgery and the competitive subspecialties make.

What about the primary care physicians who bring in more than them?

We never mention any possibility of this on the boards, so I thought it would be an interesting topic. Please share your experiences and thoughts.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[8744]

I always hear about how surgery and the competitive subspecialties make.

What about the primary care physicians who bring in more than them?

We never mention any possibility of this on the boards, so I thought it would be an interesting topic. Please share your experiences and thoughts.

To make money in primary care you have to have a lot of other doctors (or better yet PAs and NPs) working for you. Primary care is not a ticket to riches, even less so than the rest of the medical profesion.

I know. I know. You can find anecdotes about his or that FP pulling in 500K from his practice but if you look at salary surveys (which you need to take with a grain of salt) the reported starting salary of FPs is around the low 100s.

(General internal medcine does much better but we're still not talking money-burning rich.)

Not bad, of course, but this will seem lke less and less the further you advance in your medical training. It only seems like a lot when you have nothing to measure it against, say going straight from high school to college to medical school without ever holding a real job.

Emergency Medicine is the highest paid primary care field.

 

[i61164]

You can make $600K in primary care after you've been in practice for 20+ years in an affluent area and you open up a boutique MDVIP practice. It's like cashing in your chips, but again you have to have accumulated loyal wealthy patients that are willing to pay big bucks to stick with you. Most will not be able to do this.

 

[Law2Doc]

You can make $600K in primary care after you've been in practice for 20+ years in an affluent area and you open up a boutique MDVIP practice. It's like cashing in your chips, but again you have to have accumulated loyal wealthy patients that are willing to pay big bucks to stick with you. Most will not be able to do this.

The problem with this statement, even if anecdotally accurate, is that you are basing this notion on folks who got into the profession a long time ago when the getting was good. You are unlikely to repeat this because the system has significantly changed since those who got in on the ground floor 20+ years ago did, and will likely continue changing (in the wrong direction). Those 20+ years in practice got established long before PCPs, HMOs, reimbursements etc. Its a different world.

 

[8744]

The problem with this statement, even if anecdotally accurate, is that you are basing this notion on folks who got into the profession a long time ago when the getting was good. You are unlikely to repeat this because the system has significantly changed since those who got in on the ground floor 20+ years ago did, and will likely continue changing (in the wrong direction). Those 20+ years in practice got established long before PCPs, HMOs, reimbursements etc. Its a different world.

Not only that but the goal of most of the primary care attendings I work with is to segue into an adminstrative position from which they can maximize their salary by minimizing their actual patient contact.

 

[USCTex]

There is certainly something to be said for business sense.

There are always anecdotes of PCPs who branch out into cosmetic procedures or concierge services and do significantly above the national average in terms of what they bring home. If your goal is to maximize your income I'm sure you can do very well, if not as well as some more procedure based specialities, in primary care with a good entrepreneurial spirit.