Compared to U.S. mainland doctors, physicians at the Commonwealth Health Center are receiving considerably much less than their stateside counterparts, according to Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. chief executive officer Esther Mu\u00f1a.<\/p>\n
Data obtained from CHCC shows that physicians at the local hospital get between $100,000 and $250,000 per annum compared to U.S physicians who can get as much as $413,000 a year.<\/p>\n
Broken down, CHC physicians\u2019 salaries per annum are in the following ranges: internal medicine, up to $188,000; family medicine, up to $140,000; obstetrics and gynecology, up to $165,000; pediatricians, up to $172,000; emergency medicine with board certification, up to $235,000; emergency room and other specialty, up to $180,000; surgery, up to $194,000; anesthesia, up to $230,000; psychiatry, up to $189,000; and nephrology, up to $250,000.<\/p>\n
In contrast, U.S. physicians for internal medicines get an average of $188,000; family medicine, up to $176,000; obstetrics and gynecology, up to $243,000; pediatricians, up to $181,000; emergency medicine, up to $272,000; surgery, up to $300,000; anesthesia, up to $338,000; psychiatry, up to $197,000; and nephrology, up to $242,000. <\/p>\n
Hidden charges<\/strong> One of the hidden costs, Mu\u00f1a said, is that the hospital loses revenue on the inpatient side if they don\u2019t hire a physician at all. Another hidden charge is paying a recruiter to find a physician for the right job at the hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can advertise a job vacancy, but sometimes the most effective recruitment is a head hunter, who has a database of people searching for the job,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n According to Mu\u00f1a, it costs $20,000 to $30,000 per head for a recruiter.<\/p>\n \u201cThose are the hidden charges, you lose revenue and the fact that you do pay to have an arm and a leg searching for a physician,\u201d Mu\u00f1a said.<\/p>\n Another cost is when physicians hired from off island decide not to renew their contract, which means the hospital pays for their return to the U.S. mainland. That recently happened with one doctor, Mu\u00f1a said. The family totaled six and CHCC had to pay for the family to be sent back.<\/p>\n Salaries of physicians<\/strong> As of now, salaries for CHC physicians are dependent on board certification, the number of years of experience they have, and number of patients they have served.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you look at the situation we have when hiring physicians, the idea to retain them. So if a physician is asking for a salary increase, of course, we have to think if we can afford it. If we can afford it then we try to think and negotiate the salary and also put in that, if we are going to get a return of the investment on the salary,\u201d Mu\u00f1a said.<\/p>\n She said the salary issue takes into consideration the expense for a recruiter, trying to retain the physician, sending another physician home, and receiving another physician.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d rather spend $15,000 on a physician who delivers quality care than go and find somebody who I don\u2019t know,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Muna also noted that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has actually commended CHCC for doing a good job in screening its physicians.<\/p>\n \u201cThe regulations say that when CHCC hires a physician they have the responsibility of having a good character, good judgment, the competency and skill and those are the things we are required to do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is worth it when you hire a physician and that when a patient enters CHCC\u2019s care, they feel safe and comfortable. We have great physicians here at the hospital and the salary increase they have is because we have screened and have seen the way they have been working,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Compared to U.S. mainland doctors, physicians at the Commonwealth Health Center are receiving considerably much…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[666,92,140,67],"class_list":["post-177659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-chcc","tag-commonwealth-health-center","tag-commonwealth-healthcare-corp","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMu\u00f1a also said the high cost it takes to hire physicians includes hidden charges for recruitment.<\/p>\n
\nThe hospital increases a physician\u2019s salary based on three measures or standards that they look at: (1) Can the hospital afford the salary increase? (2) Can the physician provide quality care? and (3) Will the hospital get a return on investment for retaining the physician?<\/p>\n