And so private healthcare begins to crumble in the US.
A friend who is part of a large group was saying they had recently conducted a study and asked what would happen if every patient paid Medicaid rates. They result was that the physicians would make $16/hour. This was not a deep study and did not count any efficiency from laying off the billing department, but even if that's 25% savings, that doesn't change the basic equation.
The point of this conversation was that he was saying that what makes the practice lucrative, is elective surgeries for people with good, private insurance.
So fast forward to now:
- physicians are super busy and starting to get run down (60 to 80 hours)
- no elective surgeries
- higher than normal proportion of patients on Medicaid, Medicare or no insurance at all
- the admin and support staff currently receiving full pay. Payroll is unchanged
- rent on office space, malpractice insurance, etc, etc is unchanged
At the current burn rate, he says they hit bankruptcy in 4-6 months if the patient mix stays the same.
