3 ms·

In the US, what would such a squeeze in pay look like? Did it happen in other kind of jobs?

• lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Could be nominal, such as being paid less simply because you do not have another option. US pharmacists have had declining nominal pay and declining quality of life at work since at least 2016, and their pay had stagnated years before that. Check out the pharmacy forums on sdn or reddit, they are depressing. Doctors, however, bring in money and can generate revenue. Their decrease in pay would probably be via quality of life at work. The biggest complaint I see lack of autonomy and being managed like a cog in the machine. Most likely, individual doctor will have no negotiating power with the people that pay them (governments and managed care organizations, aka insurers). Therefore, they will need to become part of a doctor group, usually as an employee. If you are at the bottom of the totem pole here, the employer is probably going to want to squeeze as much out of you as possible. Expect this to vary based on how desirable the area is you live in and how many competing doctors there are. I also see many healthcare groups using nurse practitioners and physician's assistants far more than before. So when you go in for a healthcare visit, you will not actually see a doctor, but rather a PA/NP, who is (supposedly) under the purview of a doctor. But I am not aware of any standards that would prevent a doctor from having to be in charge of too many PA/NP that quality would start slipping, so I presume the workload will get higher and higher if doctors do not have much leverage with the employer. Again, probably will vary on how desirable the area the doctor is in and if the doctor's employer can choose to be picky or not.