In almost any discussion of health care costs in the U.S., a wagging finger is bound to be raised at the high salaries of doctors, but it’s time to turn that finger in another direction if you want it to follow the money.
Insurance CEO’s and hospital administrators are the ones raking in the cash, the industry claims because these posh compensation packages are necessary to attract the kind of talent they need, yet these positions far outstrip their counterparts in other areas of the world, if the positions exist at all.
As Elisabeth Rosenthal at the New York Times writes:
…[S]tudies suggest that administrative costs make up 20 to 30 percent of the United States health care bill, far higher than in any other country. American insurers, meanwhile, spent $606 per person on administrative costs, more than twice as much as in any other developed country and more than three times as much as many, according to a study by the Commonwealth Fund.
As a result of the system’s complexity, there are many jobs descriptions for positions that often don’t exist elsewhere: medical coders, claims adjusters, medical device brokers, drug purchasers — not to mention the “navigators” created by the Affordable Care Act.
Among doctors, there is growing frustration over the army of businesspeople around them and the impact of administrative costs, which are reflected in inflated charges for medical services.
“Most doctors want to do well by their patients,” said Dr. Abeel A. Mangi, a cardiothoracic surgeon at the Yale School of Medicine, who is teaming up with a group at the Yale School of Management to better evaluate cost and outcomes in his department. “Other constituents, such as device manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies and even hospital administrators, may not necessarily have that perspective.”
Here’s a look at what those highly-trained physicians and healthcare professionals in the field saving lives make in comparison, and note, this does not include the perks that can range in the millions above the average salary:
Seems like it would be far harder to recruit people to work round the clock shifts, hold people’s hands through the most traumatic moments of their lives, and be covered in bodily fluids on a regular basis.
Full story at the New York Times.
Photo credit: Fotolia, Graphics credit: Canva
Posted by
Kate Rinsema