Being sarcastic of course, say the good doctor can do two procedures in one hour of actual work time, At the Medicaid rate of $250 per procedure as in the example, that good doctor would be paid $500 per hour by the program with the lowest reimbursement rate. Just something to think about.
second, do you think that all goes into his pocket? try figuring Malpractice Insurance, insurance, computers, rent and utilities for his office, salaries and insurance for those that work in said office, etc into that equation... not to mention if he is still paying off doctor school loans
even at $500 an hour it goes pretty quickly since they don't operate all day every day
and yeah, that same model works on office visits too so for a $65 office visit they pay ~$15
You clearly have never run a business. Do you understand the concept of overhead?
This is a global fee. It includes preoperative workup, the procedure and postoperative care for 90 days. Can easily entail five hours of physician work. Now you’re down to $100 an hour, out of which must come overhead, typically at least 50%. Now you’re down to 50/hr or less. Try getting that rate from a lawyer or even a mechanic. Try to convince a bright young student to take on a few hundred k in debt and at least 11 years of training for that.
And who pays for the instrumentation, the medical facility,the drugs and anesthesia, the nurse practitioner, the scheduler, the billing clerk, the malpractice insurance, and on and on??