For many years and in countless articles, physicians have been the scapegoat for rising healthcare costs in the U.S. In fact, they have been blamed by many critics for the U.S. leading the world in healthcare expenditures.

A close examination of the data indicates that this blame is misplaced. Something else is revealed by digging deeper into the key components in healthcare spending: Technology, administrative expenses, hospital costs, lifestyle choice and chronic disease conditions have all had greater impacts on rising overall healthcare costs than physicians.

Some critics have suggested that physicians’ incomes and the fact that physicians direct most healthcare spending (80 percent is a frequently used number) are the real culprits in soaring healthcare costs. Yet despite this, physicians are not necessarily the principal beneficiaries of healthcare spending. The bulk of medical procedure payments go to hospitals and device manufactures.  For example, in California, Medicare pays on average $18,000 for a total hip replacement – $16,336 to the hospital and $1,446 to the surgeon. This reimbursement disparity is certainly not limited to California, and is representative of a broader trend on a national level.

Moreover, doctors’ net take-home pay amounts to only about 10 percent of overall healthcare spending. Which if cut by 10 percent would save about $24 billion – a considerably modest savings when compared to the $360 billion spent annually for administrative costs as estimated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and the fact that 85 percent of excess administrative overhead can be attributed to the insurance system. Administrative costs for physicians are in the range of 25-30 percent of practice revenues and insurance-related costs are 15 percent of revenues, according to a National Academy of Social Insurance report for The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Once the physician impact on healthcare costs is placed in proper perspective, the true role of other key factors can be examined more clearly.

---

Moreover, there is a real issue of health disparities that exists in this country leading to higher healthcare costs. Between 2003 and 2006, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies estimated the total direct and indirect costs of health inequities affecting racial and ethnic minority populations, including lost wages and productivity – exceeded $1.2 trillion.

Read more at Forbes.