FPs report 'first clear raise' in seven years -- September 2003 -- FP Report

FPs report 'first clear raise' in seven years

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Despite a Medicare reimbursement cut in 2002, family physicians reported a jump in income for that year in a recent AAFP survey. The Academy asked, "What was your 2002 net individual income (after expenses) from medical practice before taxes?"

The 1,541 respondents to this section of the two-part survey had an average income of $142,400 for 2002. A snapshot of FPs' mean income since 1992, not adjusted for inflation:

2002.......	$142,400
2001.......	$134,000
2000.......	$137,000
1999.......	$133,900
1998.......	$133,900
1997.......	$134,100
1996.......	$136,100
1995.......	$133,900
1994.......	$120,900
1993.......	$114,700
1992.......	$109,900

"Income leveled off near $134,000 in 1995 and stayed close to that until 2002," says Greg Tolleson, manager of data analysis and collection in the AAFP Research and Informa-tion Services Division. "This is the first clear raise for family physicians in seven years."

A sampling of other survey results, most of them similar to last year’s results:

81.8 percent have hospital admission privileges;
73.7 percent delivered no babies in 2002, and 24 percent did deliver babies, with an average of 27.5 deliveries;
compared with a year ago, 19 percent of respondents have had an increased number of patients in managed care organizations, 55.2 percent have had no change and 10.7 percent have had a decreased number;
32.3 percent participate in insurance plans that reimburse based on compliance with specific quality measures; and
respondents had an average of 89 office visits per week and 10 hospital visits.

One survey result that gained media attention last year dealt with whether respondents' practices were accepting new Medicare or Medicaid fee-for-service patients. (The results were adjusted for nonresponse, a statistical application that was not applied to figures in the rest of this story.) In 2001, 17 percent of respondents were not accepting such new patients; in 2002, 21.7 percent were not; and in 2003, 23.9 percent were not. "The 23.9 percent is not a statistically significant increase from last year, because of a plus-or-minus 2.5 percent margin of error," says Tolleson. "But the difference between this year’s 23.9 percent and the 2001 figure of 17 percent is statistically significant."

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