Greedy doctors, indeed.
Excellent article. Last time I checked, physician incomes accounted for about 14% of the total health care spending. That's right, 14%. The rest? Hospitals, insurance companies, home-health care companies...the list goes on. If you cut physician pay by 50%, you would save 7% of the total spending. The savings would be substantial, but there would be no doctors left in practice!
I don't want to reveal my exact costs, and I actually don't know the real final number that my insurance company paid after negotiations, but my surgeon was, in my opinion, woefully under-reimbursed for the 3-hr. surgery and 3 days of post-op visits. And, no, I did not get any professional courtesy discounts. I checked to make sure. In my case, all of the physicians compensation combined accounted for less than 10% of the total cost of the surgery.
That's an astounding number to me.
-tc-
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L5-S1 rupture 11/04, left leg pain for 2 wks
Regular exercise/pain-free until 2007
L5-S1 degen. disease w/constant pain since 6/07
PT, ESI, SI jt injections, 3-level nerve root inj. x 2
Massage, heat, ice, TENS, etc
L5-S1 Charite Jan. 19th, 2009, very happy w/decision
New back pain in upper back though.
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