AMA Gives Salary Data--at a Price

Doctors apparently need to make money wherever they can these days, since managed care has ratcheted down fees for medical care.

Every year, the American Medical Assn. conducts a study of physicians’ salaries, which it trumpets to the news media as evidence of the impact health-maintenance organizations are having on doctors’ incomes.

But this year, news organizations have to pay $500 to get the information, said AMA spokesman Robert Mills.

Of course, reporters who are willing to take the AMA at its word may use statistics the agency has included in a widely disseminated news release. The only problem is that those numbers are rather specific--they are median income figures instead of averages, and most are adjusted for inflation. These figures show that doctors’ median income after expenses declined slightly in 1997, the year studied, to $164,000 from $166,000 the year before.

This figure is important to doctors’ groups, which have been trying to show that physicians’ incomes have decreased since managed care began pushing down fees.

Only problem: The $500 book shows that the average income--which differs significantly from the median--actually increased a bit in 1997, rising 0.3% to $199,600, according the Chicago Tribune, which paid for a copy of the study.

In fairness, though, the raise was the smallest in years and reflects a modest loss in income in some parts of the country.