When it comes to billing, all medical degrees are not created equal. A recent survey from Dallas-based healthcare staffing firm AMN Healthcare found that physicians bill between $11.7 million and $1.3 million annually, with some non-physicians billing more than their doctor colleagues. The report estimates that physicians originate 80 percent of all healthcare dollars spent in the system.
As healthcare costs rise, numerous forces are at work to curb prices, but shifts toward value-based care, bundled prices, and transparency haven’t stopped unsustainable increases in healthcare prices over the past decades. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that spending on healthcare reached $4.3 trillion in 2021, representing 18.3 percent of the economy and $12,914 per person. AMN’s report, which looked at 95 percent of commercial claims submitted by physicians in 18 physician specialties in 2021, found that physicians bill commercial health insurance $3.8 million annually. The average hides the wide range of billing totals for each specialty.