Forbes - Local physicians, surgeons highest paid in U.S

Forbes magazine says Owensboro physicians and surgeons outside the major specialties are the highest paid in America.

That sounds like it should help Owensboro Medical Health System in its efforts to recruit 85 doctors during the next decade.

But Jeff Barber, OMHS president, said Wednesday that Kentucky's higher medical liability insurance payments are a major factor in doctors looking elsewhere.

Forbes' May 20 report says that the average physician and surgeon outside the main specialties nationally earned $137,100 in 2004 -- the last year available.

It didn't say what they made in Owensboro.

But it listed the city as the "top paying metro."

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, however, lists Owensboro as the nation's fourth-highest paying market for physicians and surgeons with an average of $193,250 per year.

The BLS says that equals $93.42 an hour.

And Forbes said the doctors in this group saw a 12.5 percent increase in pay that year.

Owensboro as a whole ranks 258th in the nation in personal income, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The Owensboro metropolitan area's 46,870 workers had an average income of $30,910 in 2004.

Lima, Ohio, tops the BLS list of highest-paid physicians and surgeons. But its average pay is not listed on the BLS Web site.

It's followed by Wheeling, W.Va., at $194,320 and Lowell, Mass., at $193,990.

The BLS says the average physician and surgeon in this category nationally earned $138,910 in 2004.

Lima and Wheeling, Barber said, are similar to Owensboro in one respect.

"These are medically underserved areas," he said. "That indicates that the income is volume driven. The doctors are having to see more patients to make the additional income. Even if we add a few doctors, I don't think it will impact the salaries."

But Barber said his efforts to attract more doctors to the community are hampered by higher liability insurance costs.

"Neurosurgeons pay $100,000 more per person per year in Owensboro for liability insurance than they do in Evansville," he said. "And ob-gyn premiums are much, much higher in Kentucky."

The Forbes report, Barber said, "doesn't help us in recruiting -- not when you consider the overhead costs."

The hospital wants to recruit 40 doctors immediately, he said.

"But we really need to add 85 doctors over the next 10 years," Barber said. "Half of those will just replace those who are retiring or leaving."

Each doctor, he said, creates about 10 jobs in the community -- five office jobs and five hospital jobs.

Forbes wrote that "the medical profession dominates the top end of our list of the 25 best- and worst-paying jobs in America."

Surgeons were first with an average salary nationally of $181,850.

They were followed by anesthesiologists, ob-gyns, oral surgeons, internists, prosthodontists, orthodontists, psychiatrists, chief executives, pediatricians, family and general practitioners, and physicians and surgeons.