Why are medical professions so hesitant to protect their income?

[Paralegalities]

I've been a pre-law student with a business degree working for a law firm until recently, and I've noticed a huge difference in mindset/willingness to acknowledge that this is a job from the medical side of things. If you talk to a law or business student, almost always, they'll unashamedly say money or owning their own business is why they're going into that field. If you don't pay your attorney, your attorney will sue the living crap out of you for as long as necessary to get the money you owe them. If you steal from a business, they'll get you arrested, blacklisted from the industry, or sue you without a second thought.

Yet in medicine (all levels, not just doctors) no one seems to stand up for themselves against theft or abuse, and allow their salaries to be chipped away at little by little without opposition. Psychologists for example, make practically nothing these days relative to their education, yet do not advocate for themselves as a profession and seem afraid to charge fair prices to their clients. Doctors and other high-level medical providers seem to just let themselves get run-over by non-paying patients or insurance companies that won't pay a fair rate, and allow politicians to demonize them for charging more than the bare minimum of prices for medical services. It's like there's a giant guilt-complex that somehow insisting on being paid what you're worth makes you a bad medical provider or not being fair to the patients. Even public service employees like the police and military are open about joining the profession for the benefits and security that come with it, while the medical community focuses exclusively on helping others and seems to just pretend to not see the money that comes with it.

Why are medical providers so hesitant to get what they're owed like other professions do?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[LizzyM]

You must have missed this campaign:

AMA successfully fights scope of practice expansions that threaten patient safety

Patients deserve care led by physicians. The AMA successfully fights scope of practice expansions that threaten patient safety through research and education.

www.ama-assn.org

Also look at #stopscoopcreep on Twitter.

 

[Styrene]

Out in day-to-day practice, I believe there is good reason that physicians are removed, psychologically and/or practically, from the payment end of things. There is an idea that reasonable healthcare is a right, so whether or not a patient can pay ought not to influence care. How this manifests in each physician varies, but that sentiment exists among many providers.

In terms of policy, though, the battle rages on. It's a mismatch of sorts.