Archive for April 29th, 2010

Hey doc: your turn to bend over …

April 29, 2010

The gist of the below article: Primary care physicians are grossly underpaid compared with specialists, so there are fewer are them.  (No kidding ?)  

So, pay them more and there will be more of them. (It’s called an upward sloping supply curve !)

Yeah, yeah.

But, here’s what caught my eye: “A family physician or general internist averages about $160,000 a year; a specialist averages $267,000.”

BW focused on the $100k difference (which they multiplied by 35 to make it look, well, 35 times bigger).

My focus: the $267,000 level … just enough to target the specialists as rich enough to get hit by Obama’s soak-the-wealthy tax rate increases.

So, under ObamaCare, docs who are arguably the best get hit with reimbursement caps (that cut their earnings) and tax increases (that grabs more of what’s left).

Bend over doc.

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Excerpted from Business Week: General Practitioners Need to Make More Money, April 26, 2010

In 1997, The Council on Graduate Medical Education, a little-known federal panel … suggested a cap on the overall number of medical residents as part of federal cost cuts. And so it was done.

Now, the Council is about to recommend an increase in the number of primary-care physicians—and pay them a whole lot more.

Primary-care doctors comprise 32% of the physician workforce. Factor out pediatricians and just over 23% of doctors deal with adults, and that number is shrinking.

A family physician or general internist averages about $160,000 a year; a specialist averages $267,000.

That means the general practitioner will earn about $3.5 million less over a lifetime.

The panel is calling for a 40% hike in the number of primary-care doctors — and a 40% income increase for those entering the field. That should get general practitioners to within 70% of the median income of specialty physicians.

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Did you know ?

Medicare determines the baseline for doctors’ pay, and since most medical students elect to train in the non-primary-care jobs generating the majority of charges, procedure-oriented specialists end up the winners.

Medicare finances the system via direct subsidies to pay residents’ salaries and indirect payments to hospitals for tests and other duties fulfilled by residents.

Full article:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_18/b4176043937119.htm

Posted in Health Care / Medical Insurance | Leave a Comment »

EC says “not so fast” on internet sales …

April 29, 2010

TakeAway:  Who should have more control over where goods are distributed – manufacturers or retailers? 

Seems like the maker of the good (i.e., the manufacturer) should have the say over where its goods are made available for sale. 

Not so in Europe.  The European Commission is prepared to mandate retailer-favored distribution policies.

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Excerpted from WSJ, “EU to Overhaul Online-Retail Rules,” By Peppi Kiviniemi, April 19, 2010

Heavy lobbying from luxury-goods companies has led the European Commission to water down proposals aimed at expanding online sales of goods in Europe …

The new rules … will protect luxury-goods manufacturers against damage to their image by allowing them to insist in many cases that online sales be restricted to retailers who have “bricks and mortar” stores … This would prevent online-only retailers like Amazon and Ebay from selling the goods directly.

Preventing consumers from buying clothes or cosmetics brands over the Internet from a company that has an “online-only” business model will limit consumer choice and lead to higher prices and less innovative goods, said Director General of the European Consumers Organisation BEUC. But famous names like LVMH and Estée Lauder have argued that an uncontrolled push online could damage their image, and that online entrepreneurs shouldn’t benefit from the brand recognition they have worked hard to build up …

With the Internet now the fastest-growing retail channel in Europe, the overhaul of the competition rules has been long expected by the industry. Previously, luxury-goods makers had full control over who could sell their goods and they were able to prevent most online sales.

Overall, the new EU-wide rules will open up online sales by ensuring that manufacturers cannot discriminate against online shops when setting up their distribution networks, the document shows.

Any qualitative conditions that manufacturers set on who is allowed to sell their products must apply equally to high-street and online sales. This means that shopkeepers who are allowed to sell branded goods on the high street can also set up a store inside eBay or elsewhere on the Web to sell the same products online, provided that their online presence meets the brand requirements for look, feel and pre- and after-sales services …

Edit by TJS

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Full Article
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704671904575193993537322862.html?mod=WSJ_business_whatsNews

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Posted in Mktg - Distribution | Leave a Comment »