Doctor Bills

The public last week received, from Elizabeth Fox, national director of the Public Health Nursing Service of the American Red Cross, some ponderable figures on doctors' bills:

Every day in the year the 100,000 physicians of the U. S. take in $1,500,000 in fees, or $15 each.

About 20 out of every 1,000 of the U. S. population, or almost two and one-half million, are sick daily. All, of course, do not call doctors. General practitioners charge from $3 to $5 for office visits, $5 to $10 for house calls.

Doctors consider the $15 a day too low an income. The individual physician is entitled, wrote Dr. J. Lewis Webb of Chicago to Clinical Medicine & Surgery to at least a laborer's wage of $125 monthly ($4 daily). That makes $1,500 a year. Besides that he should receive at least 15% interest, or $6,750 yearly on the $45,000 which fairly represents the money he spent for his education and training and the time and wages he lost while learning. $1,500 in professional wages, plus $6,750 interest on educational investment, makes $8,250 yearly, or about $23 daily.

The Webb figure for what doctors should get, was $8 more than the Fox figure for what U. S. doctors are now getting.