Oregon Pediatrician Responds to Critics – Explains How Much Money Pediatricians Make on Vaccines
Let us set the record straight. I am not anti-vaccine. I am absolutely pro-science and vaccine risk aware. One huge misconception, and I see the comments on this, is that pediatricians don't make money on vaccines or that they are not financially incentivized to vaccinate. There are profits from vaccine mark-ups and huge profits from vaccine administration fees. The average admin fee is about $35 per vaccine. For the 715 patients born into my practice who have refused to give any vaccines (each child would have had 28 vaccines by age 2 and over 60 vaccines in their childhood) amounting to income of $700,000 for the 2 years and $1.5 million over their childhood. Those are real dollars lost for Integrative Pediatrics. The money lost when considering that we serve over 15,000 patients, with most being selective about how they vaccinate would have driven most practices out of business. There are also built in incentives in many contracts with health plans. Vaccines are a quality measure (if your practice does not reach a bench mark in numbers vaccinated) you loose a % on all services provided to patients under that insurance contract. Is it any wonder most of my peers discharge patients from their practices who won't follow the CDC schedule? Often these patients are told to call Dr. Thomas (Integrative Pediatrics). Let us be clear. It is not a good business decision to allow families not to vaccinate or to permit selective vaccination. We at Integrative Pediatrics honor the law in Oregon that allows informed consent. Parents are still permitted in Oregon to make health care decisions for their children. Those who discharge these families deny them their legal right. They also profit greatly by limiting the numbers of non-vaccinating families or partially vaccinating families.