PHYSICIANS office RESOURCE 2018 - Issue 5
Spending Less is More Effective than Earning More
By Dr . Cory S . Fawcett Find more helpful information from Dr . Cory S . Fawcett by following his blog at DrCorySFawcett . com or by reading one of his books in The Doctors Guide Series .
Most doctors have experienced running out of money before the month ends . Often , our first thought is the need to earn more money to make ends meet . But is increasing our income the best solution ? Aren ’ t we already busy enough ? Weren ’ t we just wishing we had more time off ? Don ’ t we already make a lot of money ? increase our income , most of us will need to see more patients . Are there more patients to see ? We could work our day off , add an extra hour each work day , open the office in the evening , skip our vacation , see patients on Saturday , work a weekend locums assignment , moonlight , or add a new service to increase our income .
There are two ways to have more breathing room in our budget : We can either earn more or spend less .
When we choose to earn more , we are presuming that we can actually find more patients to cram into our already overloaded schedule , or find more space in the calendar to add extra shifts or take more call . In order to
Increasing income , however , also means increasing taxes and other expenses . For every new dollar earned , we will likely pay 40 % of it in taxes at the marginal tax rate . That means for every hundred dollars we need to increase our take home pay , we will need to earn $ 170 before taxes . This doesn ’ t take into consideration the other factors involved with working more hours like
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