PHYSICIANS/TECH: Why diagnostic radiologists won't make $400K a year forever

One of the smartest observers of the medical scene, UCSF's Bob Wachter had an interesting article in the NEJM on The Implications of Medical Outsourcing. Here's the key point:

By severing the connection between the "assay" and its interpretation, digitization allows the assay to be performed by a lower-wage technician at the patient's bedside and the more cognitively complex interpretation to be performed by a physician who no longer needs to be in the building — or the country.

Of course they'll be lots of resistance to this -- and if anything Wachter understates the extent of the war that's about to happen (think specialty hospitals). But eventually collaboration software (as being plugged by Microsoft and Nortel) will remove the need for much direct physical connection between patient and physician, and skilled technicians and lower-paid clinicians will mediate between them.

Until of course the availability of lower-paid physical physicians re-disintermediates that trend. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, do yourself a favor and read Eric Schlosser's fantastic article on why it's cheaper to hire people than machines to pick strawberries.