Thoughts on inpatient work that is non-salaried, billing-only?

[fiatslug]

I'm looking at a position at a private psychiatric hospital that's hiring for a C&A inpt psychiatrist. The hospital doesn't pay a salary; your earnings are entirely from billing insurance companies for inpt services rendered. I've heard (and the recruiter is saying, for that *that's* worth) that inpt structured in this way can be very rewarding--he said the people seeing 8 pts/day are billing at about $300K/yr, and those seeing 12-15 are billing b/w $400 and $500K/yr. Anyone know about these kind of positions?

A friend took a position at one of these hospitals right after fellowship (I'm graduating in June) and quit after 5 days--partially b/c he's much more psychodynamically oriented, partially b/c the billing thing is a huge headache: it takes months to get on some panels (7 mos for Blue Cross?!?), you have to hire someone to do the billing and that person takes 6-7% of what you bill for (or what you collect? not sure about that), initially you won't be seeing collections (ie, salary!) for 2-3 months after starting work. They do have a stipend for taking an administrative title (Assoc Med Director, something like that) of about $5K/mo, so that would help, at least in the beginning. My friend has a friend who is still doing it, and I'm hoping to talk to her soon.

Also, anyone know what percentage of your billable salary would be gone for taxes, paying for benefits, funding retirement, etc??

Thanks!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Doc Samson]

I'm looking at a position at a private psychiatric hospital that's hiring for a C&A inpt psychiatrist. The hospital doesn't pay a salary; your earnings are entirely from billing insurance companies for inpt services rendered. I've heard (and the recruiter is saying, for that *that's* worth) that inpt structured in this way can be very rewarding--he said the people seeing 8 pts/day are billing at about $300K/yr, and those seeing 12-15 are billing b/w $400 and $500K/yr. Anyone know about these kind of positions?

A friend took a position at one of these hospitals right after fellowship (I'm graduating in June) and quit after 5 days--partially b/c he's much more psychodynamically oriented, partially b/c the billing thing is a huge headache: it takes months to get on some panels (7 mos for Blue Cross?!?), you have to hire someone to do the billing and that person takes 6-7% of what you bill for (or what you collect? not sure about that), initially you won't be seeing collections (ie, salary!) for 2-3 months after starting work. They do have a stipend for taking an administrative title (Assoc Med Director, something like that) of about $5K/mo, so that would help, at least in the beginning. My friend has a friend who is still doing it, and I'm hoping to talk to her soon.

Also, anyone know what percentage of your billable salary would be gone for taxes, paying for benefits, funding retirement, etc??

Thanks!

Forget how much they're billing - how much are they getting reimbursed? Insurance pays less than half what I bill for consults - which is why I'm very happy to be salaried.

 

[kugel]

A friend of mine working inpt only at several hospitals in the area of southern LA County and northern Orange County says he makes "my first thousand before lunch" at least a couple days per week. He's on call q 3-4. He works REALLY hard, but takes 2-3 weeks vacation every 3 months or so, with a "work hard, play hard" mentality. He is known as conscientious and I think he really cares about his patients (but I have to admit I'm not a pt of his).

He is part of a group that handles all the billing/collections.

 

[BillingDept]

I’m not a doctor (see screen name) but I thought I’d throw my .02 in on this post. Disclaimer: though I have eight years experience in medical billing, none of it is in psychiatry. My main thought on this subject is high risk, high reward.

In the practices that I’ve worked in the associates who were paid a percentage of what they collected made out way better than those who are salaried.