Who's Rolling in Dough?

 

There's a new trick used by hospital corporations today, perhaps you've even had it played on you.

When hospital corporations negotiate fees with doctors they use salary studies by consulting firms to produce an hourly rate for most specialties.

The hourly fees are based on a number of false assumptions, the most obvious being that doctors work 40 hour weeks, but the point is doctors are being shortchanged at nearly every turn. Insurance companies are winning the battle to convince the media and almost everyone else that a big factor driving rising costs in healthcare are doctor’s fees.

Doctors are being victimized, along with their patients. They are not what’s driving up the cost of medical care.

The facts, however, suggest that the folks who run the hospital corporations and insurance companies are doing more than their share to drive up costs. Even using their assumptions about the 40-hour week, on an hourly basis, here’s how their earnings compare with the doctors’.