Opinion
Report on better pay in primary care doesn't jibe with practice realities
LETTER — Posted July 17, 2006
Regarding "Primary care doctors in demand; signing bonuses and higher pay for some" (Article, June 19): Your report indicated predictions for rising physician salaries in primary care. How pray tell, are we in private practice to experience salary increases when we are being told annually to expect reimbursement for physician services to go down? Am I to suddenly get some kind of free bonus from some unforeseen lottery for primary care physicians?
The current physician reimbursement fee schedule guarantees the ongoing and worsening shortage of primary care physicians in the United States.
I am in private practice and cannot work faster or longer to bring about this pie-in-the-sky rosy future of improved salary for my already under-compensated services.
I won't be hiring any new primary care physicians until or unless significant improvement in reimbursement occurs.
Please don't publish such nonsense about improved physician salaries without explaining where this money is going to come from.
Raymond W. Kordonowy, MD, Fort Myers , Fla.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2006/07/17/edlt0717.htm.
