Who Values Human Capitalists' Human Capital? The Earnings and Labor Supply of U.S. Physicians

Effects of the Affordable Care Act Medicaid Expansion on the Compensation of New Primary Care Physicians

“…Finally, we controlled for time-varying state-level policies that may affect compensation of new PCPs during the study period, including whether a state continued the Medicaid “fee bump” for primary care after 2014,23 and whether a state allows nurse practitioners to have full practice authority24,25 (Online Appendix 4.I, Supplemental Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/MLR/C473).…”

Medicare Physician Fee Schedule

“…2,3 Computerized electrocardiogram interpretation can have more than 40% false-positive and falsenegative rates for the most important electrocardiographic finding, ST-segment elevation myocardial infection. 4 If physicians are financially incentivized to rely on computerized interpretation, this may result in both deadly misses and costly inappropriate cardiac catheterizations. When relying on subjective assessments of work intensity and effort, it is all too easy to misvalue high-quality practices.…”

“…3 Numbers aside, keeping physician fees unrealistically low and creating infighting within the house of medicine is fruitless, since physician reimbursement has in no case kept up with inflation of more than 40% during the same period. 4 Hospitals were more than adequately compensated with a 50% rise in reimbursement, 4 and pharmaceutical spending increased by more than 65%. 5 Physicians are stewards of the nation's health.…”

“…They are all well within the United States' 1% wealthiest individuals. 4 Primary care physicians are toward the bottom of the physician payment hierarchy, often earning a third to a quarter the annual income of proceduralists for the same weekly work time. The recent increase in fees for evaluation and management codes to narrow this substantial income gap between proceduralists and primary care physicians has proven inadequate to compensate for the 3 to 4 times greater pay to some proceduralists.…”

Medicare Physician Fee Schedule

“…2,3 Attempting to cut reimbursement further will generate limited savings and, at a time when 47% of the workforce is considering leaving, may have drastic consequences on access. 4 As the authors point out, "the MPFS has remained basically unreformed for 30 years." Perhaps it is time to at least adjust for inflation?…”