Extra time

Indeed. By the logic in this piece, every moment one spends thinking about his/her work outside of the office ought to be billed. Do doctors refund money to patients if they are interrupted during a consult?…

Actually, Happyman, I’m a consulting engineer in private practice and I dare say my clients don’t think it’s a bogus job title for someone who really does nothing or they wouldn’t be paying me about 20 times the minimum wage to do it. Yes, I do bill by the hour — including telephone time — but the majority of hours I work are not billed. That includes handling a steady stream of phone and e-mail inquiries in which the inquirers are just fishing for free advice under the guise of seeking my services. I also don’t bill clients for time I spend educating myself to handle parts of their problems that are unusual. That’s just part of the job. That’s why I make the big bucks.

You probably make bigger bucks. Stop acting like one of society’s
oppressed and downtrodden. Maybe you should take some time off and go stack apples in the produce store for $7/hour. You’ve lost perspective.

Minimum wage in the $6-7 dollars an hour range. Twenty times the minimum wage would be $120-140 dollars an hour.

I believe Happyman and Dr. Pho are in primary care.

They also do the same amount of telephone time, all uncompensated, with the difference that it’s all hours of the day and night. Same for research time for unusual cases.

When hospitals take over primary care practices, they often end up losing money, because the doctors who find themselves employees now expect to be paid for what they did for free as independent practitioners.

But to the point, primary care docs make about $150,000. Assume 48 weeks work a year, a 40 hour week, I calculate about $78 an hour. That does not take into account uncompensated “on-call” time, not to mention the phone calls, etc., as mentioned.

For the time and money invested, opportunity cost, the prospective primary care doc would be better off in a MBA program or law school.