by DeepRoller » Mon Sep 04, 2006 9:27 am
Since the earnings of physicians are mostly determined by payments by insurance companies and state medicaid agencies, there is largely no difference in DO vs. MD pay.
DO's have one advantage, however. I'll use my own experience to illustrate.
The doctor I used to work for, a DO family practice doc, did a lot of OMT.
OMT is something that can be billed for, instead of an office visit (what? you may be saying).
At the time I worked for him, the typical insurance company that we billed for him paid in the neighborhood of $30 per office visit (not necessarily including copays). Our actual billed amount was $95.
Our actual billed amount for a 3 region OMT was $140. The insurance companies typically paid around $80 for each of these.
So, as a matter of strategy, a DO, when warranted could use OMT, and bill for it, instead of the traditional office visit. Can't do both, at least not without appropriate diagnoses to back up the billing amounts on the HCFA form.
Another thing about DO's that you may not have considered...
Of course, this is only is you think you might want to be a family practice doc.
DO's tend to be more like traditional family docs: office visits, nursing home work, delivering babies, ER duty, and doing quite a bit more surgery than MD FP docs do these days.
There is some return to that way of doing things in the MD world, but not like in the Osteopathic profession.
So...let's sum it up.
DO's may actually make more money, typically, than a lot of MD's.
I don't know where to find the numbers, but I'll bet there is some comparison that will bolster what I'm saying here out there somewhere.
Michael