Which is why the hospital owners have recently started convincing lawmakers to allow them to hire as many 'mid levels' they want instead.
They charge the patients the SAME, since, to the eyes of insurance, the services supplied are basically the same. They just get to KEEP more of the difference for the hospital stakeholders with a PA than with someone with a medical degree.
Doctors are also basically employees to the eyes of these hospitals. Albeit ones with some skills.
But I think they are abused during their residency and 4 - 5 years of being treated like absolute shit and everyone looking at you like a spoiled idiot (but is actually poor since residency salaries basically cover only housing and food) can turn most futures doctors into jaded and disillusioned cogs for the insurance machine.
Hospitals want to get paid by the insurance companies... so will bend over backwards and make it happen to the employees detriment.
Insurance companies PWN us all. So do not get distracted and think bigger picture. Doctors actually don't know the price of anything, they just do their job, and are getting trickle down from the insurance companies... which the hospitals gut through first.
Yeah, doctors had to work to get paid that much, but its the insurance and hospital business aspect that makes the costs sky high. They have lobbied for it to be this way for decades, letting idiot doctors distract us and have become an easy scapegoat. Most doctors have no idea how they get paid, the hospital complicates it on purpose so that idiots on both the doctor and patient sides are clueless and blame anything but the accurate picture.
They charge the patients the SAME, since, to the eyes of insurance, the services supplied are basically the same. They just get to KEEP more of the difference for the hospital stakeholders with a PA than with someone with a medical degree.