You Don't Need To Go To Oslo To Get The Prize To Know The Blue Book Tells Nothing

By Ben Meisner

I wasn’t going to wade into the matter of what we pay the Doctors in B.C. , but  here I go.

Each year the “Blue Book” lists what they have earned and usually someone (without any idea of how business operates) grabs the figures and uses them, suggesting that Docs make a whole lot of money.

I know that to be quite different. My buddy has been a Doctor as long as I have known him and year in year out I have watched him have to decline to go fishing for the weekend, head off to Mexico with me , because he is married to his work.

For many years there were only two people in his speciality, so that meant he had to take calls every second day. "Want a beer?" I’d ask, "Can’t do it, I’m on call" would be his reply. He would be on call 180 days a year. Now that has changed and so has his income, problem is he is getting old and he is going to have to begin to take fewer calls.

So let me give you a little inside, let’s say the Doc bills $320,000 a year. Office help $36,000, including benefits and holidays. Cost of office; $20,000, Equipment and services; $10,000, insurance, (if he doesn’t do a good job we like to sue); $14,000. Vehicle, got to be up to date, because when you’re on call your expected to be on the scene right away, gas, insurance, depreciation and maintenance $15,000, phone pager, ( even if you’re at my house when the hospital rings  even if it’s midnight you come running or risk using that insurance policy ) $3,000, holiday help, you bet , the fellow coming into take over your practise while you're away wants money, he’s probably staying in a hotel , $5,000. Meals away from home, when you get called in the middle of the night, you can’t take time to whip up a ham sandwich and after awhile the cafeteria food gets pretty hard to take. $5,000. Accounting, $5,000, remember if you don’t have someone make up the bills and make sure you get paid, you don’t.

Now that adds up to $108,000 dollars. But keep in mind; if you want to have some RSP’S it will be up to you to contribute to them there will be no help from your employer, you are the employer. Statutory holidays, your staff gets paid; you get paid what you normally would for being on call. Overtime for those holidays, are you crazy you get paid by the call not the day you're working.

So here we have it, tax on $200,000, 50%, so you're left with a $100,000 for the year, $8,330 a month.

Now if you put in 65 hours a week , you will (after tax) put $28.52 an hour into your pocket.

Now did I forget, you may want to work fewer hours, but how do you tell the people that need your help that you have decided you’re going to take a few weeks off? Find another doctor. So you may want to work less and bill less but the problem is, as another old friend of mind found out, living in a small rural town, that when Johnny breaks his arm, there is no "on call" folks know where you live and they will soon find you.

There is a further problem that the blue book doesn’t talk about. The new generation of doc’s doesn't like to work long hours like the people they are replacing, (you know, the ones that bill alot) they are entering the market with no strings attached and no reason to work like the people they are replacing.

As a final note, did I forget to mention that it takes 13 to 14 years to become a specialist in my buddy’s field? Now I don’t know what the complainers might say, but I hold to the reasoning that if you haven’t had a pay check for the first 13 to 14 years of your work, you should be entitled to receive something for that. The blue book unfortunately doesn’t mention all this, nor do the people who like to complain.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.

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