Quote:
Originally Posted by Clodfobble
Aren't most of the specialists you know OB-GYNs? As you note, their malpractice insurance rates are exhorbitant, and far worse than the rest of the industry. I've said before that needs to be curbed.
|
Yes and Surgeons of all practices. So General Surgery, Plastics, EENT, Vascular, and Ortho.
Quote:
|
Why do they need a staff of 30? Is it possible that many, if not most of those employees are hired specifically to deal with chasing down payment from bullshit insurance companies?
|
I would say that maybe 5 or so work just with insurance, coding, and billing.
Quote:
|
Wouldn't certain reforms allow them to have a smaller staff and lower operating costs?
|
I seriously doubt it.
Quote:
|
And I'm sorry to tell you, but 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM are not excruciating hours. My husband works from about 8:30 AM until 7:30 PM, and usually comes home with more work to do. And his industry does the on-call thing, too, so he's in that rotation as well. Ask Lumberjim what kind of hours he worked this weekend.
|
Those are just the office hours times for the patients. No one goes home or comes in at those times. When I go there, the surgery side we start at 0700 and often do not finish til after 5. Remember they still have to see patients in the hospital after clinic is finished.
Quote:
|
My experience is that most private-practice doctors (again, other than OB-GYNs) do not go on call--they have an answering service that will leave a message for an on call nurse, who will call you back to let you know whether your problem can wait until morning, or you should go to the ER.
|
All surgeons have an on-call service, basically an answering service. They also pay a nurse or PA to be the person on-call for professional stuff over the phone. And one of the 4 is always on-call in-house at the hospital 24/7/356. All of them work the day after call in the clinic, some for just a half a day, one works more. Add up those hours and it would put most peoples work schedule to shame. As a side I work an average of 70 hours a week and often well over 110 hours. The guys I work with will take vacation 2 or 3 times a year for a week at a time, but hey they also work for it. I still say few people would be able to keep up with the average busy doctors work schedule.