Morning Read: A look into a primary care doctor’s finances

Highlights of the important and the interesting from the world of health care:

A look into a primary care doctor’s finances: For anyone who’s ever wondered about the finances of running a doctor’s office, CNN takes somewhat of a glimpse into the books of an upstate New York primary carephysician. Although more detail would be nice, we learn that Dr. William Schreiber pulls in about $800,000 in revenue to offset nearly $720,000 in costs. That’s not a particularly profitable endeavor, if CNN’s numbers are correct. Schreiber, who employs two physicians’ assistants, says threatened cuts to Medicare’s physician payment rates would seriously compromise his ability to make a living.

It’s important to note that, for Schreiber at least, malpractice insurance costs aren’t unreasonable. He pays $7,000 a year to cover himself and $2,000 each for his assistants. Also notable is the per-visit charges that Schreiber asks for and what he ultimately gets from Medicare. It varies by procedure, but for a “complex” visit, which entails a patient with a wide variety of ailments, Schreiber asks for $120 and receives $88. Nonetheless, Schreiber’s fairly grim financial picture further underscores the need to change how primary care physicians are paid, and at least makes a strong case for debt for medical students who go into primary care.

Goldman’s favor to Obama: Just like Wellpoint’s California rate hikes, Goldman Sachs has handed President Obama and reform advocates a weapon. The investment bank recently released an analysis advocating buying shares in two big insurers, because rates are up and competition is down. Reform advocates say the report illustrates why insurers need to be more tightly regulated and that rising costs threaten all Americans.

Unfortunately for insurance companies, the problem is that their business model simply forces them to do things–like rescissions–that are injurious to the public in order for the companies to provide a healthy return to their shareholders. That’s not necessarily the fault of insurers; it’s just the business they’re in. So in sensing that what’s good for insurers is bad for them and vice versa, the American public is on the right track.

The placebo effect: In news that has has big implications for drugmakers, a researcher from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston has found the placebo effect to be twice as strong as it was 30 years ago, NPR reports. No one’s really sure why that’s the case, though part of it may simply be that patients’ high expectations that a treatment will work–faith in science. However, another explanation involves how patients are recruited for clinical trials. One researcher uses the example of clinical trials for anti-depressants:

Researchers, especially in pharmaceutical trials, get paid for every patient they recruit. But often, Kaptchuk says, it’s hard to find people, so doctors will sometimes admit patients to trials who simply aren’t that depressed. And typically, he says, people who aren’t that depressed are much more susceptible to the placebo effect.

Health care sector continues to add jobs: The health care sector added jobs once again, with 12,000 in February. Ambulatory health-care services posted the largest runup, adding 6,700 jobs, while nursing and residential-care facilities hired another 4,000.

Photo from flickr user Yuya Tamai