Health Care Jobs Up, & Expected to Stay That Way

The sickness of one is the work of the other. The Wall Street Journal reports that “Health care saw a net gain of 419,000 jobs in 2008 and its growth outlook continues to be strong through 2016, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

According to WSJ, Dennis Damp, “the Pittsburgh, Pa.-based author of ‘Healthcare Job Explosion’ and editor of Healthcarejobs.org, a free recruiting Web site,” said that “about half of the BLS' 30 fastest-growing occupations through 2016 are health-related.”

An examination of the latest BLS report (p. 25) shows that employment numbers were up in every category of health care jobs tracked. WSJ reports that “among specific occupations, the number of registered nurses grew the most, adding 168,000 jobs through November as hospitals and agencies tried to address a nationwide nursing shortage.”

The Journal also reports that “The number of home care aides grew by 64,000 in 2008, the BLS said. Office and administrative support workers such as medical-records clerks accounted for 14% of the overall increase in health-care jobs year over year.” That 14% increase would be equivalent to approximately 59,000 jobs.

John Challenger, chief executive of outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas in Chicago is reported by WSJ to have said that in health care, "Long-term forces are outweighing the short-term recessionary forces." Mr. Challenger cited “the aging of the baby boomers, rapid product development in biotechnology and increased momentum for comprehensive national health-care reform” as being “likely to drive job growth this year.”

Mr. Challenger also noted that "There's strong demand for geriatricians, physical therapists and nurses of all kinds….noting support work is hot as well, especially as the incoming Obama administration takes up health reform. 'A commitment to a new kind of more universal health-care system is going to create a new structure and consequently new jobs."

Read the full WSJ article here.

Physician Compensation II

Yesterday’s post displayed recent Bureau of Labor Statistic figures concerning physician compensation, and offered a link to recent median physician compensation data approved for use by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for calculations regarding direct graduate medical education under 42 CFR 413.78(f). The producer of this data, AMGA, also offers an interactive physician compensation survey which shows “average” and “starting” compensation for various specialties. A click on the arrow underneath “average” will sort from lowest to highest.

Here below is a list of a few of the CMS approved median physician compensation figures for a number of different specialties. The numbers are taken from the 2008 report.

The median compensation for a practitioner:

• Pediatric & Adolescent, Internal 161,444
• Pediatric & Adolescent, Infect. Disease 174,154
• Family Medicine, w/out Obstetrics 176,280
• Family Med., w/out Obst., Branch* 190,182
• Geriatrics 179,344
• Podiatry: 180,080
• Transplant Surgery, Kidney 368,750
• Dermatology, Branch* 301,111
• Dermatology, Mohs 423,848
• Not neural, Non-Interventionist, Radiology 420,858
• Mammography 540,028
• Orthopedic Surgery, Spine 611,670

*Branch is defined by AMGA as: These specialties have the same basic definition as the main specialty. These physicians located in small satellite or branch offices at least five miles from the main campus. The branch office practices primarily as its own separate entity, and often has different compensation and/or performance expectations than its main campus colleagues, there would be no teaching responsibilities at these locations.

With these numbers, over the course of ten career years, if calculated at a constant rate without regard to future increases in compensation, the median paid “Family Doctor, Branch” will have earned $1,900,182. During those same static ten years, a “Mammographer” will have earned $5,400,280. If the Family Doctor were to consult with the Mammographer at the end of those ten years, she would be doing so with someone who had made $3,500,098 more than she—nearly 3 times as much. If that same Family Doctor were to then consult with someone from the lowest paid of the three categories of Radiologist, Not neural, Non-Interventionist, she would be doing so with someone who had made $4,208,580 during that time—which would be $2,308,398 more than she--or more than twice as much.

Perhaps by way of consolation for the PCP, the Geriatrics specialist and the Pediatric Infectious Disease specialist would have fared worse, and even the Kidney transplant specialist who consults with the radiologist would be speaking with someone who had made a half of a million dollars more than he did.

But perhaps it is not consolation enough; the AMA has reported that the nation faces a shortage of 35,000 to 40,000 Primary Care Physicians.