Articles related to FINANCE

The amount owed on medical student loans keeps growing. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the average debt held by 2019 graduates, which includes loans for both medical school and undergraduate study, is a staggering $201,490. In 1978, the average debt for medical school was $13,500, which is equivalent to $54,000 now.

These specialties had the highest proportion of doctors still making student loan payments, per the 2022 Medscape report: Emergency Medicine (31%) Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (31%) Pediatrics (31%) Neurology (28%) Otolaryngology (28%) Family Medicine (28%) For the least debt-burdened: Pulmonary Medicine (10%) Public Health & Preventive Medicine (11%) Rheumatology (12%) Diabetes & Endocrinology (15%) Dermatology (16%) Cardiology (16%)

In a 2021 poll conducted by West Health and Gallup, 7% of American respondents said they had difficulty paying for at least one prescription drug in the previous three months. The same survey also found that 1 in 10 Americans had skipped medication doses in the previous year in order to save money. The well-known billionaire Mark Cuban is aiming to alter that with the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, which will lower the cost and provide access to hundreds of prescriptions for people all around the nation. “Everyone should have safe, affordable medicines with transparent prices.” Mark Cuban

The No Surprises Act, which went into effect on January 1, 2022, serves patients by legally protecting them from unexpected bills after receiving “emergency care, non-emergency care from out-of-network providers at in-network facilities, and air ambulance services from out-of-network providers.” But there are some doctors, like this acute-care surgeon, who believes the act is unconstitutional and is taking the federal government to court.

In an editorial published in KevinMD.com, a neurosurgeon discusses the myriad reasons she chooses to stay in clinical practice when many of her colleagues are leaving. The reasons range from job satisfaction from treating patients to family and financial considerations.

Just because they are highly educated and high-income earners does not mean physicians are immune from making bad financial decisions. Poor investment decisions, failure to plan for taxes, and escalating debt loads are just a few of the financial issues that plague doctors across the US.