Shortage of General Surgeons and its Effect on Hospital Revenue
                     
Shortage of General Surgeons and its Effect on 
Hospital Revenue
The acute shortage of general surgeons is evident in the Occupational Outlook Handbook of the Bureau of 
Labor Statistics which states that only 5% of physicians were general surgeons in the year 2007, and the 
situation has not improved since. In fact, the shortage of general surgeons is getting worse and is projected to 
worsen in the future. The role of a general surgeon cannot be underestimated in a country where the 
population is increasing and millions more are receiving health insurance due to the reforms. The population 
of the country is estimated to grow by more than 30 million by the year 2020 and the country’s baby boomer 
population and the population of old people would be very high. This would certainly put humungous 
pressure on general surgeons and have manifold consequences for general surgeons as well as for the health 
industry. A hospital revenue bond is a type of municipal bond that finances the construction of new facilities 
or upgrades for existing hospitals.
The problems of general surgeons don’t just stop at the shortage and the endless work hours but extend to 
many challenges that are unique to this specialty. In rural areas as well there is a higher shortage of general 
surgeons. An article in the Archives of Surgery called The Increasing Workload of General Surgery gives some 
facts about the future of this specialty. 
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Shortage of General Surgeons and its Effect on 
Hospital Revenue
According to the article, the workload of general surgeons will increase by 31.5% between 2000 and 2020 
with the amount of workload growth varying among the five different types of surgeries that are taken into 
account from 19.9% to 40.3%. Hospital revenue is the money that a medical center generates from 
operations.
We apply our General Surgery Billing and Coding Services to Improve Coding Guidelines 
and Reduce Denials.
This increasing workload is affecting hospital emergency rooms the hardest since most surgeries are 
performed in bigger hospitals and also due to the fact that general surgeons usually determine whether or 
not to operate on a patient in emergency rooms. This increased demand and shortened supply of general 
surgeons would not only cause detrimental health consequences for the general populace in the future but 
also cause huge financial damage to almost all entities involved in the healthcare system.
The challenges facing general surgery are numerous; however, all is not lost for hospitals and physicians, at 
least on the financial side, due to the helping hand provided by the government in the form of incentives for
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Shortage of General Surgeons and its Effect on 
Hospital Revenue
the implementation of EHR/EMR systems, ‘Meaningful Use’, reforms in payment structures and such other 
incentives. However, implementation of these systems and policies completely depends on streamlining all 
the departmental processes such as revenue cycle management, selecting an appropriate EHR or EMR
 system, denial management, interaction with payers, and medical billing and coding. Outsourcing these 
processes would not only reduce the workload of the hospitals in general but also provide the opportunities, 
time, and resources for the challenges faced by general surgeons in aspects of healthcare delivery along with 
improving hospital revenue generation.
Medicalbillersandcoders.com is the largest consortium of medical billers and coders in the United States and 
provides services to physician practice and hospitals, that are not just limited to accounts receivables or 
revenue cycle management or denial management but also encompass various other services such as 
research and consultancy.
MBC’s expertise in billing and coding for general surgery practices can help improve the practice’s revenue
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Shortage of General Surgeons and its Effect on 
Hospital Revenue
cycle, reduce claim denials, and improve compliance with billing regulations. To know more about our general 
surgery billing and coding services, email us at: [email protected] or call us at 888-357-3226
.
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