How should physicians be paid?

Robert Centor suggests, by time:

I believe that lawyers have the right system. You pay for time. I have written often that physicians only have time to sell.

Comments

Anonymous
…And this is why my friends in investment management and real estate charge a percentage. Being paid by “time” is a fools game unless you use extenders that bill for more than you compensate them.
One of the pet-peeves of lawyers is that there are only 24 billable hours per day.
What you need to do is capture the value of your product.
Anonymous
I think this is one of the stupidest ideas I have heard. So I go into a room talk for an hour about the town’s mayor race or the local baseball team, or I explain explain everything right down to the Kreb’s cycle to every patient. Why should I be rewarded for that? When you take away incentives for efficiency and productivity you make our system into a complete disaster with nobody wanting to work harder than the next guy.
Michael Rack, MD
“So I go into a room talk for an hour about the town’s mayor race or the local baseball team, or I explain explain everything right down to the Kreb’s cycle to every patient.”
Good point. The only way paying by time would work if it was the patient paying, not the insurance company.
I pay my lawyer by the hour, so when I meet with him or call him, I make sure we get right down to business.

Related Stories