NotUrsula
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2002
- Messages
- 20,054
I'm not going to blame physicians too badly; they invest an enormous amount of time and effort into their educations, so I don't mind if they make a decent profit. IME with my friends who are physicians, most of them are not rolling in money (the two exceptions I'm aware of would be dermatologists and anesthesiologists; they do tend to clean up cash-wise.)
I *am* going to blame pharmaceutical firms and hospital administrations. Pharmaceutical profit margins are ridiculous, and they throw away enormous amounts of money on perks, even for low-level employees. (My BIL works for a major pharma company as a quality control inspector, and he travels quite often for work. It is STANDARD for all of his travel (not just long-haul travel) to be booked in First Class. His per-diem is $400/day NOT including entertainment! He pockets most of it because they never ask for any receipts.)
Even hospitals that are supposedly nonprofit are charging obscene amounts of money to cover things like luxury facilities and inflated administrative salaries. We've just got to have that marble lobby! Covering the uninsured in the ER aside, THAT is a huge part of why the same procedure done in a full-service hospital will cost so much more than it will when done at an outpatient clinic.
When it comes to things like MRI's, the turnover in technology contributes to the cost. Facilities routinely build anticipated replacement cost into what they charge for equipment use, so that they essentially do not pay for the equipment as overhead; they make sure that the procedures more than cover the cost of buying the machines. Places like Mayo, especially, tend to want to replace a perfectly good machine the minute that a "better" one hits the market, because they place so much emphasis on being on the cutting edge.
I *am* going to blame pharmaceutical firms and hospital administrations. Pharmaceutical profit margins are ridiculous, and they throw away enormous amounts of money on perks, even for low-level employees. (My BIL works for a major pharma company as a quality control inspector, and he travels quite often for work. It is STANDARD for all of his travel (not just long-haul travel) to be booked in First Class. His per-diem is $400/day NOT including entertainment! He pockets most of it because they never ask for any receipts.)
Even hospitals that are supposedly nonprofit are charging obscene amounts of money to cover things like luxury facilities and inflated administrative salaries. We've just got to have that marble lobby! Covering the uninsured in the ER aside, THAT is a huge part of why the same procedure done in a full-service hospital will cost so much more than it will when done at an outpatient clinic.
When it comes to things like MRI's, the turnover in technology contributes to the cost. Facilities routinely build anticipated replacement cost into what they charge for equipment use, so that they essentially do not pay for the equipment as overhead; they make sure that the procedures more than cover the cost of buying the machines. Places like Mayo, especially, tend to want to replace a perfectly good machine the minute that a "better" one hits the market, because they place so much emphasis on being on the cutting edge.
