All Doctors should be on a Salary !

Physicians can be paid a straight fixed salary by a clinic or hospital (not the doctor's P.C.) or they can collect a fee per case. The salary (plus bonuses for exceptional services) has always provided the best level of medical care. The doctor doesn't have to hurry or constantly scrounge for more cases, and he is not rewarded for unnecessary treatment. He can do what is best for the patient and not what is best for his bank account. Seek your treatment at a large medical clinic where the doctors are salaried.

What about the patient who lives in a small town? Most large well run medical centers have satellite clinics in small towns; seek them out. If there is nothing in your town travel to the nearest large medical center and have them work with a cooperative General Practitioner or Nurse Practitioner in your town who will help with day-to-day care under the direction of the clinic physicians. Do not submit yourself or your patient to a fee-for-service scheme of $75 per office visit for allergy shots or some such.

The solution for the country is to have large well run medical clinics in the large cities in each state with satellite clinics in the small towns; and with ALL repeat ALL doctors on a fixed salary. Many large clinics are doing this; seek them out. Be sure the doctors are salaried. Ask the question. If you don't get an answer, go elsewhere.

Be particularly careful to avoid the fast moving hard to understand doctor who has a jammed wating room and who does 10 tonsillectomies or 10 arthroscopies on his operating days. You don't want to be tenth in line for anything. If he is doing 10 precedures three days or more days a week you can bet half of them are unnecessary. This physician may have a good reputation; he created it and paid for it himself. Pay no attention when the front desk clerk tells you how good he is, she works for him . Further, he probably rewards his referring doctors with a generous Christmas gift to their wives and children. This is FEE SPLITTING and is strictly against the ethical codes of all professional associations (AMA, etc.). Beware !