Jarrod Shapiro, DPM
PRESENT New Docs Editor
Joined Mountain View
Medical & Surgical Associates
of Madras, Oregon July 2008

Results – How is the current economy effecting our practices?

As promised, here are the results of our informal survey about how the current economy is affecting our practice of podiatry. Follow this link to see the results. If you haven't seen the survey, follow this link to view it. I’ve always found surveys interesting, because they often provide a gestalt, a larger picture of the situation. Often we become caught up in our individual perspective, which may or may not be consistent with the larger reality. How often have you thought something to be both true and obvious to you, only to learn later that everyone else had a completely different perspective? Seeing alternate perspectives and the big picture is where life becomes exciting!

The overall response, 71 people took the survey, was fairly strong considering many of our resident colleagues are not in the position to respond yet. We do reach many thousands of practicing podiatrists, though. So, thank you to those who responded. To those who didn’t, I’d urge you to participate in our future PRESENT surveys. The strength of all surveys, like any research study, improves with greater numbers of participants. Don’t worry, my resident friends. It won’t be long! I would also direct you to the annual Podiatry Management Magazine survey of podiatric medicine practices.

In general, I find the results very interesting and informative. I’m going to touch on what I thought were the highlights of these results. For those of you who found this as stimulating as I have, please write in with your comments.

First, the majority of practicing physicians in the survey have suffered just a small overall change to their practices, in spite of the economic downturn, with only 12.7% (9 of 71) greatly affected (see below). It seems medicine to a large extent is insulated from the economic changes...much more than other business sectors. One question I did not ask (and perhaps should have) was the location and patient demographics of our survey participants. Almost 13% is not insignificant, and we’ll have to wonder if doctors in certain areas of the country are feeling the hit worse than others.

83.1% of respondents have not reduced or laid-off employees (see below). This is interesting for two reasons. One, the economy hasn’t hit most podiatrists so badly that they’re reducing staff, and two, podiatrists take care of their employees. We are not panicking and cutting our staff without good reason. Instead, as question 4 shows (see below), podiatrists are coming up with creative business methods to maintain practice viability. These numbers also correlate with question number 1, with about 13% being greatly affected and question 3 (see below), with 17% having reducing their staff. These numbers are likely similar for physicians.

Over a third of respondents skipped question 4. I interpret this as many of us have not needed to make changes to our practices yet. Good sign!

According to question 5’s answers (see below), the vast majority of podiatrists are making personal changes to their lifestyles with the majority spending less and saving more, reflecting the trend for the United States population in general. This seems like smart personal finances to me. Unfortunately, no one knows when this recession will end.

The results of questions 6 and 7 (see below) make sense. The majority of us have seen a decrease in the number of elective surgeries, while emergent surgical numbers have not changed. The unemployed/uninsured don’t often undergo elective surgery, while emergent procedures will occur despite what the economy does. I would imagine these numbers could change depending on how much the unemployment numbers grow. For example, as more people are out of work, they have more time to get into trouble, thereby needing emergent surgery. Additionally, as more people are laid off and lose their health insurance, we podiatrists may then begin to see a drop in the elective surgical numbers. I hope the economy turns around, and we never experience that drop. Best wishes with your practice and personal economies.