physician salaries

[littledoctor]

Good morning and Merry Christmas!!!

I am looking for specialties and family med salaries in Ontario and Quebec... (not during residency, but after)

Do you know where I can find those?

Thanks a lot!

[sfinch]

haha...greedy aren't we...

 

doctors make alot of money in all areas...a full time gp in ontario will make at least 200K a year pre tax but post expenses.

[rmorelan]

Good morning and Merry Christmas!!!

I am looking for specialties and family med salaries in Ontario and Quebec... (not during residency, but after)

Do you know where I can find those?

Thanks a lot!

 

Sometimes hard to find as a lot of doctors are not salaried at all and run their own businesses (and bill the government) - although there are a lot more service agreement strategies now for FM.

 

The list of provided each year in Ontario for those earning over 100,000 dollars (as a side note I really hate that list, seems like quite the invasion of privacy) gives some idea for a select few areas. Here it is:

 

http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/publications/salarydisclosure/2009/hospit09.html

 

I will reinforces what sfinch said - first and foremost if you are doctor in any area you are paid quite well. Ever single doctor I have run into at Western as said the same thing.

 

Even FM (traditionally one of the worst paid) are now making quite a bit (well over 200,000). now that is less than a specialist perhaps, but they generally working a hell of a lot less hours. I think 250,000+ (and that + was for extreme doctors a lot) was the estimate one of our "why FM sessions?" and that was with a standard 9-5 with Friday afternoons off (Golf time perhaps? ) and doing the call thing one in 70. The government has finally stepped up to support FM.

[ploughboy]

Problem is that you will find different answers all around. You can make as much as you want or as little as you want depending on the number of patients you decide to see and which procedures you do. We have a FM doc here who services 23,000+ (there are 3 zeros there) patients, and I've met one who services 300, but mainly elderly. You catch the drift.

 

I know you're confident in your number, but am trying to figure out how a single doc could run a practice of 23k patients.

 

52 wks/yr * 100 hrs/wk = 5200 hours /yr

 

5200 hrs/yr / 23 000 patients = 0.23 hrs/yr/pt

 

Or in other words the physician works a 14+ hour day every day of the week and each patient gets 15 minutes of the physician's time during the course of a year. I suppose that's achievable if they're all young and healthy (including the physician, but (s)he won't be for long at that pace) and if a bunch of the patients don't actually see the doctor in a given year. (But then how is the physician being compensated for having them on his/her roster? Is the MOHLTC seriously allowing somebody to capitate 23,000 patients?)

 

Throw in some octogenarians with multiple medical issues, a handful of expectant mothers and a few patients with psychiatric co-morbidities, some WSIB patients showing up with endless paperwork, and there just wouldn't be enough hours in the day.

 

If you'd said 2300 I'd believe it. Heck, if you said 4000 I'd believe it. But 23,000? Either you heard wrong, or the vast majority of those patients aren't actually being seen regularly by that physician.

[Julie]

Good morning and Merry Christmas!!!

I am looking for specialties and family med salaries in Ontario and Quebec... (not during residency, but after)

Do you know where I can find those?

Thanks a lot!

 

The CMA website has some info on the subject, along with other interesting info on the different specialties. The income section isn't very precise as they only give the fee-for-service average payment for a group of specialties (ie EM is with family, all internal sub-specialties are together). They don't take into account those who get additional income from other sources, or the overhead expenses. Also, the info is for the year 2005-2006, so things may have changed...but it still may give a general idea :

 

http://www.cma.ca/index.cfm/ci_id/53559/la_id/1.htm

[ploughboy]

Heard it from his own mouth (He does PCCM). I thought I heard wrong when he said it, but then it was confirmed by my classmates that actually did observorships with him. I found it hard to believe as well. Even though he does work like 12-13 hours a day still can't see it. My only guess is that a lot of them just don't come in more than a few times a year. I can give you a name if you'd like seeing as you were in windsor yourself, but I don't know if you would know him.

 

23000 patients a year, *and* he spends a couple of hours a week at the university *and* he takes students in clinic (students = slowdown)? Something doesn't add up. Either he delegates like mad to an army of nurses, NPs, dieticians, pharmacists etc, or has partners in the clinic and 23k is the total for the clinic as a whole, or a large fraction of those 23k patients haven't seen the inside of his clinic for years. (Or maybe he's just crazy efficient and we could all learn something from him, but...23,000?)

 

Flip me a pm, you've got me really curious now...

[rmorelan]

Heard it from his own mouth (He does PCCM). I thought I heard wrong when he said it, but then it was confirmed by my classmates that actually did observorships with him. I found it hard to believe as well. Even though he does work like 12-13 hours a day still can't see it. My only guess is that a lot of them just don't come in more than a few times a year. I can give you a name if you'd like seeing as you were in windsor yourself, but I don't know if you would know him.

 

Yeah they may be on his roster but he doesn't actually see them regularly. My brother hasn't seen his doctor in 10 years - I hope for his sake that a lot of his patients are like that.

 

Still I am pretty shocked by the intensity of that practice. Not a lot of time for the "FIFE" there

[leviathan]

Your average walk-in clinic with easy patients will get you about 50 patients / 6 hours if you are very quick and efficient (and some might say sloppy). That's only 18k/year if you worked every single day of the year. If you worked 8 hour days, that would be 24k patients. If you worked a bit longer but worked fewer days, I guess it could theoretically work out?

[TurkandJD]

The CMA website has some info on the subject, along with other interesting info on the different specialties. The income section isn't very precise as they only give the fee-for-service average payment for a group of specialties (ie EM is with family, all internal sub-specialties are together). They don't take into account those who get additional income from other sources, or the overhead expenses. Also, the info is for the year 2005-2006, so things may have changed...but it still may give a general idea :

 

http://www.cma.ca/index.cfm/ci_id/53559/la_id/1.htm

 

thanks for the website.

[Keile]

Your average walk-in clinic with easy patients will get you about 50 patients / 6 hours if you are very quick and efficient (and some might say sloppy). That's only 18k/year if you worked every single day of the year. If you worked 8 hour days, that would be 24k patients. If you worked a bit longer but worked fewer days, I guess it could theoretically work out?

 

How much are you paid per patient?

[leviathan]

How much are you paid per patient?

$27 for a standard office visit, but then you have to substract overhead.

[JewelLeigh]

$32.35 for a standard visit in Ontario if you are fee per service. (This doesn't include other fees such as that for immunizations, in-office urine tests, counseling, annual physicals, paps, etc.) Add 15% (if I remember right) to that for rostered patients if you are in a Family Health Group. If you are in a capitation model (Family Health Network or Organization) you get paid a yearly fee per patient to cover a "basket" of services for them for the year as opposed to getting paid for each visit separately.

 

This is before overhead (~30% being a good rough estimate) and income tax.

[Microbiodude]

Perhaps he meant 23K patients as in "I'm the only doc within a reasonable radius and as such the residents of each county/ township come to me and I'm obliged to treat them on a walk-in basis but not necessarily have them as part of my practice?"

[moo]

Like I've said before, it all depends on how much you wanna work in FM. In BC, you get paid 29.29 per patient age 2-49, and it rises up to 45 bucks for those over 80 incrementally. You also get chronic disease management fees (for example, each diabetic in your practice nets you 125 bucks per year, each complex care (two or more chronic conditions) nets you at least 325 a year plus the appropriate CDM fees, etc), WSBC (WCB), private billings, procedural billings, hospital, phone calls, sick notes, etc. If you wanna make a lot, you can.

 

For me, even only working part-time about 30 hours a week as a family doc with call while working as a full-time resident nets me about 250K per year (including residency salary of about 59k) AFTER OVERHEAD but before taxes. Heck, I billed the government's MSP plan more than what my mom's endocrinologist billed last year! And I don't think endocrinologists do much in terms of private billings. Granted, I worked way harder but still it goes to show that it is possible to make the money even in family practice. Thus it really annoys me whenever family docs say they don't make enough money and discourage people from doing it. Yes, FM sucks for other reasons (and that's why I'm slowly leaving it) but money should not be the reason med students skip over FM. It can be very lucrative, and more so than many specialties. Yes, I even know doctors who bill the government about 500-600k a year (add on top the WSBC/ICBC and other billings and you probably have docs who bill 700-800K a year). I know because they are the family docs of my relatives and all this info is available on the BC MSP website (google blue book BCMSP).

[sgt.pepper]

wow. one guy made 1.2 mil. hes a urologist.

[boodog]

hey moo, some very interesting comments. what are your reasons for not liking FM? is it the clinics? or something else?

 

thanks.

[sfinch]

In BC, some jewish cardiologist from south africa made over 2 million last year. He's known to be a pretty arrogant dude here in Vancouver- but runs a tight ship. In the interior, an indian ophthalmologist billed over 2 million as well. Even after expenses, we are talking incomes of well over 1.5 million. This is professional sports money. Several family doctors were billing over 1 million as well.

 

The thing is, alot of the plastic surgeons and opthos on the list make TONS more money - they bill privately!!! I've heard of some ophthalmologists making well over 2.5 million dollars (everyone in the know, knows how to do it). The radiologists often bill to large groups as opposed to individually - so their enormous incomes of >1 million are often disguised.

 

Alot of the BC docs are a greedy lot. Alas, that is the way it is. You'll make tons as a doctor, so don't worry. You won't be starving.

[keith_015]

In BC, some jewish cardiologist from south africa made over 2 million last year. He's known to be a pretty arrogant dude here in Vancouver- but runs a tight ship. In the interior, an indian ophthalmologist billed over 2 million as well. Even after expenses, we are talking incomes of well over 1.5 million. This is professional sports money. Several family doctors were billing over 1 million as well.

 

I find it funny that you have to point out religion or race.

[future_doc]

Yes, it's entirely irrelevant to anything and can only spread prejudice sfinch, to which you are so very sensitive, so please, do understand the underlying meaning you are spreading inadvertantly and just start the new year being more sensitive and careful. Please. We are all on the same team here.

[rmorelan]

admittedly an entirely unnecessarily inflammatory post but it does point out the range of billing that is possible. It's what makes predicting end income difficult - people keep expecting an exact number and their just isn't one.

[moo]

hey moo, some very interesting comments. what are your reasons for not liking FM? is it the clinics? or something else?

 

thanks.

 

I probably won't ever completely give up clinical practice, but I don't want to do 100% FM either. It has to do with a multitude of things (and like I said remuneration is NOT one of them). When you have your own patients and know them and can follow them, FM can be rewarding. However, you always will have random drop-ins that you see during those days when things aren't busy and you meet some crazy people. When you're dealing with the general public, for every 100 awesome patient, you'll get 1 that will ruin your week. Also, I grew sick of day-in, day-out office work. Felt more like a chore. It felt like a normal job. I hated the fact that when I took time off, there always was the feeling of not making money (whereas in public health I'll get a salary and paid vacations and won't feel guilty taking too much time off). Like I said, I'll still probably end up doing some clinical work here and there but public health to me is more of a career. I enjoy being a physician-epidemiologist. Public health is a lot of problem solving, detective work that I really like, so it's not so much what I don't like about FM but more about what I love about PH.

[Mandibular]

Sometimes hard to find as a lot of doctors are not salaried at all and run their own businesses (and bill the government) - although there are a lot more service agreement strategies now for FM.

 

The list of provided each year in Ontario for those earning over 100,000 dollars (as a side note I really hate that list, seems like quite the invasion of privacy) gives some idea for a select few areas. Here it is:

 

http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/publications/salarydisclosure/2009/hospit09.html

 

I will reinforces what sfinch said - first and foremost if you are doctor in any area you are paid quite well. Ever single doctor I have run into at Western as said the same thing.

 

Even FM (traditionally one of the worst paid) are now making quite a bit (well over 200,000). now that is less than a specialist perhaps, but they generally working a hell of a lot less hours. I think 250,000+ (and that + was for extreme doctors a lot) was the estimate one of our "why FM sessions?" and that was with a standard 9-5 with Friday afternoons off (Golf time perhaps? ) and doing the call thing one in 70. The government has finally stepped up to support FM.

 

 

Is there a way to find the Alberta or Quebec version of this document?

[rmorelan]

Is there a way to find the Alberta or Quebec version of this document?

 

I think that document is created via an Ontario specific law. There was some out cry years ago about how much people were being paid - and hence it was created.

[Mandibular]

It's cause I had found the BC version of it yesterday, so my guess was that every province has to "display" the billings because it's a provincial expense

[rmorelan]

It's cause I had found the BC version of it yesterday, so my guess was that every province has to "display" the billings because it's a provincial expense

 

ahhh that makes sense That doc though wasn't billings, it was actual salaries. I guess that is important as there is no overhead to be considered on top of that amount. It's a part of the over 100,000 dollar salary list. That's also way it is so incomplete - most doctors are some form of billing rather than salary.