Primary Care Doctors Want to Earn More

By THERESA AGOVINO

NEW YORK – Primary care doctors say they are disappointed with their income, but a majority are satisfied with their careers, according to a new survey released Thursday.

Fifty-three percent of primary care doctors say their salaries, which average $150,000 a year, have let them down, with only 10.5 percent calling their compensation excellent, said a study conducted by Merritt Hawkins, a physician recruitment firm and Physicians Practice, a magazine. The survey was sent to three types of primary care doctors: family practitioners, internists and pediatricians.

Still, 68 percent of the doctors said they were either "very satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied" with their careers with the remainder claiming they were "somewhat dissatisfied" or "very dissatisfied" with their profession.

Yet, despite their satisfaction, only 37.6 percent said they would choose to enter primary care again if they could start their careers over. Over one-third said they would go into a surgical or diagnostic specialty instead. Meanwhile, 28.6 percent said they would not choose to go into medicine.

Aside from salaries, the doctors worried about their overhead costs. Sixty percent of respondents said they spent between 40 percent and 70 percent of their revenues on running their offices. More than one-quarter said overhead equaled 61 percent or more of their revenues while 1.4 percent said operating costs actually exceeded their income.

Nearly 23 percent of doctors said they were doubtful they could sustain the overhead costs their practices would incur five years from now and 7 percent says claimed they wouldn’t be able to do it. One quarter said they could maintain their practices’ overhead five years from now.

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On the Net:

Merritt Hawkins: http://www.merritthawkins.com  

Physicians Practice: http://www.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.com