New Study Links Rising Health Costs to Physician Pay
BY LAUREN UZDIENSKI, SEPTEMBER 8, 2011
A new study, published in Health Affairs and written up in the New York Times, finds that orthopedic surgeons are paid substantially more in the U.S. than in Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, among other countries, and concluded that rising healthcare costs can be attributed partially to physician fees. Orthopedic surgeons in the U.S. earn an average of $442,450 annually, while their counterparts in other countries earn less than $210,000. Further, both public and private pay for hip replacements is substantially higher in the U.S. than other countries.
This study sets up physician pay as an easy target for reducing healthcare costs, though payers have historically shied away from this type of action. Scheduled cuts to Medicare payment rates have been compounding for several years, and now physicians are due for a 29.5% reduction in pay. This cut is expected to go into effect on January 1, 2012, but Congress has consistently intervened to block the cuts.
Notably, one of the study's authors is Sherry A. Glied, an assistant secretary of health and human services. Per the Times, Ms. Glied said the paper "did not reflect the official views of the administration or the White House", though curbing health spending remains a crucial public policy question as the Obama administration begins to implement the Affordable Care Act.
