” Doctor, you make a lot of money!” these are the common words patients say to me during my daily clinic consultation.
Doctors are making good money by charging high fees! That the impression patients have on doctors!
Is it true?
I joined a private practice in 2012 after working in public hospitals for 10 years ( 2001 till 2011). Spending 5 years in medical school and another 10 years in medical training made me very slow in terms of career advancement as compared to my friends.
My income was about MYR5000 for many years after my postgraduate diploma MRCP. I made about MYR9000 per month for the last 2 years in government service.
Salary over Tuition Cost (SOT)
Let look at how much a student spends in tuition fee in different courses
| Degree | Total Cost | Median Salary |
| Medicine | MYR320000 | MYR17200 |
| Engineering | MYR60000 | MYR5590 |
| Accounting | MYR40000 | MYR6690 |
| IT | MYR45000 | MYR6680 |
SOT of being a doctor is 0.05375, the lowest compared to other professions. Accounting job gives you the best SOT ( 0.16725). Mind you that this is the tuition fee of a medical degree in Malaysia.
You are likely to spend at least MYR1.2-1.5 million to go overseas to get a medical degree!
Becoming a doctor is the worst career investment you and your parent can make!
Duration of career advancement
A doctor needs to spend at least 10-15 years in training to be a specialist. By the time you become a specialist and making a decent living, your friends have been long promoted to be a senior manager and accountant in the company.
When you are happy finally making your first 5-figure salary of MYR10,000 per month, your friends have been taking a 5-figure salary for years!
I am wondering how many decades you have in a lifetime? The average Malaysian lifespan is 75.3 years ( Male:73.2 and Female:77.6). Spending 1.5 to 2 decades ( average of 20-25% of your lifespan) for career training is not acceptable!
Life is not as easy as you think
I am allowed to charge MYR80-235 for the first consultation ( extra 50% after office hours) and up to MYR 105 (extra 50% after office hours) for follow-ups. These fees are clearly spelled out in doctors’ fee schedules.
We have to abide by rules and regulations set by the Malaysian Medical Council. Even though we can charge certain fees per day by seeing inpatients, these fees are always capped below allowable rates by certain parties such as hospital operators or insurance companies.
For inpatient hospitalizations, after the one-off consultation fee, I only can charge MYR125 per patient per day.
My patients are not happy I get MYR125 for a 5-10 minutes ward round every day, but I always remind them that I am actually on duty for 24 hours!
Doctors work 24/7/365 in private practice!
Who will the nurse call if anything happens to a patient? I was once being called 108 times from the hospital within 24 hours.
Private hospital nurses can call the doctor because of anything under the Sun, she is obliged to call you because
- an elderly patient under your care couldn’t sleep at 1 am,
- another young patient develops a low-grade fever at 2 am
- your co-managed patient couldn’t open his/her bowel or has been constipated for 1-2 days at 3 am
- a newly admitted patient wants to go out of the hospital to get his/her belongings at home at 5 am
- family members want to talk to you at 7 am on a Sunday
- a defaulted anxious patient of yours comes to casualty because of high sugar requests to see you at 4 am immediately
- an angry patient wants to talk to you at 11 pm because his/her insurance claim is rejected
- etc etc
How I wish I can work as a plumber who charges MYR 1000 by changing a leaking pipe!
or works as a physiotherapist who spends 15 minutes percussing the chest and charges patients MYR80 on hospital behalf. The best part is there is no responsibility after 900 seconds.
And yes if I wish I could be the hospital operator to charge patients with no specific rules and regulations. The best part, the patients and family members do not even know who is the boss behind the hospital and always blame the doctors when they look at the bills!
We really want to help
It is always the doctors’ intention of helping sick and ill patients. I always tell my patients by looking at the hospital bill, you would soon realize the doctor’s fees are only peanut to the hospital total bill!
We do not get commissions from your blood tests, medicines, imaging tests, injections, ID tags, gloves, masks, nursing care, mineral water, room rates, etc charged by hospital operators, we are only getting fees by giving professional consultation, doing procedures, and treatment.
These fees are all regulated by the Malaysian Medical Council ( MMC) and we are actually charging lower than the permitted rates due to various reasons!
I am worried too
Looking at ever-escalating healthcare costs and medical insurance premiums, I am worried as other patients too.
When you know how inflated are the prices of items charged by hospitals, you would understand the reasons behind the horrendous medical inflation in Malaysia and Singapore!
Doctors’ fees have been capped fixed for years! The bulk of medical fees for hospitalizations comprise hospital charges which remain unregulated to date.
Doctors are generally savers
Doctors save the major bulk of the income because we are simply too busy to spend it.
We work hard like others to earn a living! Remember that our fees are regulated by laws! The bulk of medical bills are charged by the hospital which is unregulated.
When you call for help in the middle of the night and end up in casualty, who will wake up at 3 am even though they are unwell and lend you a hand?
Your plumber, lawyer, accountant, electrician, beautician, hospital CEO , traditional practitioner would never answer your call after office hours except for your doctors!
