INSURANCE ACT.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 144357, 23 March 1914, Page 6

INSURANCE ACT.

DOCTORS FARE WELL. According to Scottish newspapers pane! doctors under the National Insurance Act aro receiving handsome returns. and were a proposal made for the disconti..nance of the scheme the strongest opposition would ccmo from the medical practitioners—the men who at ono time threatened to wreck the whole undertaking. The reason of their changed view is that they have found tho National Insurance scheme something like a little goldmine. Probably in no place in Scotland have tho medical men found a richer harvest than in Dnnedee. Owing to peculiar circumstances there is a paucity of medical men in that city. In Edinburgh, for instance, there is on the panel one doctor for every 700 insured persons; in Glasgow tho average is 1200 persons for each doctor; whereas in Dundee (hero is only one doctor for each 1600 insured persons. Altogether 41! Dundee medical men divide between them 68.000 patients, who bring in £23,800. The large number of 12,000 persons, however, havo not selected a doctor, and medical benefit has to be deducted off the doctors’ earnings plus a percentage of it which the insurance Committee allows to them. But taking the number of persons for whom doctors aro receiving payment as 56,000, tho largo sum of £19,600 is being divided among 42 medical men of tho city, giving an average of £466 18a 4d each. One Dundee doctor has 3900 persons on his list, and ho thus receives from this source alone an annual revenue of £1865; another doctor has 3000 persons with a revenue of £1260, and another has 3300, with £1165. In other words, three Dundee doctors are earning an average of £1260 per annum, and an Aggregate of £3780. Three other Dundee panel doctors are earning from £375 to £IOSO each from lisus which include. betwen 2500 and 3000 persons.