Analysis of influencing factors on self-employed physician's income

Park, Woong Sub; Kim, Han Joong; Sohn, Myong Sei; Park, Eun Cheol

Abstract

This study describes the relation of physician's income and price of medical service and social welfare through microeconomic view, reviews the literature of influencing factor on physician's income, and it describes general distribution of physician's income, and analyzes influencing factor of physician's income. A total of 844 persons responded to the mail survey, through stratified sampling by 23 branches of medical society in Korean RBRVS study. The design of the study is cross sectional study, and the unit of analysis is a physician. To examine the change of average income per month, multiple regression was used to test the change according to physician's characteristics, demographic characteristics, scale of clinic(or hospital), average intensity of ordinary work, and specialty. The major findings of this study are as follows; 1. As for self-employed physicians, the difference of average income per month among specialties was 4,850,000won, but the difference was 6,020,000won under the control of control variables, and average income per month was significantly higher for physicians who had sick-beds than physicians who had no sick-beds. 2. The number of average out-patients per month and number of nurses and nursing aides significantly positively associated, but the number of physician significantly negatively associated with average income per month. In conclusion, the number of out-patient and number of nurses and nursing aides is the major influencing factor, and the difference of average income per month among specialties existed in self-employed physicians. So this study suggests basic hypothesis that the price of medical service and supply of physician by specialties are not pertinent. Being a cross-sectional study, this study can not suggest causal explanations. In the future, further study is needed for causal explanations.