3 ms·
A 15 minute email from my lawyer costs about $150, I don’t see why we should be outraged about $25? It’s much harder and more expensive to become a doctor.
by ericd 3y ago
A 15 minute email from my lawyer costs about $150, I don’t see why we should be outraged about $25? It’s much harder and more expensive to become a doctor.
- adolph 3y agoLawyers did pricing better than doctors. Medicine hid costs through a payment plan lumped in with hazard insurance. Now that the game of hide the money has played out, people see real costs and they act shocked.
- ericd 3y agoYeah, I guess many people started to think of the copay as the true cost, since that’s what they paid most of the time?
- gnicholas 3y agoPerhaps, but doctors get paid through opaque insurance. While that can be a hassle, it also introduces the huge benefit of OPM (Other People's Money). Convince your patients to come in for a 20 minute physical, for which they pay $25, and you get 20x as much from their insurance company. Lawyers don't have that play in their playbook!
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago> A 15 minute email from my lawyer costs about $150 Unless your lawyer is an equity partner, he's not getting much of that $150. In the US, the median doctor makes almost 75% more than the median lawyer...
- ericd 3y agoYeah, they’re a partner. I can believe your stat for specialists, but not for the general practitioners you’re most likely to be emailing.
- AbstractH24 3y agoWhat makes you assume people are more likely to email general practitioners? I’d venture to say that people with chronic illnesses that require ongoing intervention to sustain daily life are more likely. If you just have a migraine out of the blue you’re gonna need a full appointment to provide context.
- thereticent 3y agoI can assure you that in a hospital system, the doctor is not getting much of the $25 either. For my situation, we don't charge for messages, but for other services we need to hit a target (messages don't count) based on our salary, and productivity bonuses above that target are about 5-10% of the billed amount.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y agoThis is roughly how it works for non-equity partner lawyers as well.