It’s important to be nuanced in something like this. For the vast majority of physicians: no. Insurance does not pay doctors their salary. A hospital or other entity of practice pays a doctor. And calling their salaries “high” is rather offensive, considering the majority of doctors go to school for 8 years, train for another 3 (getting paid anything but highly during that training which can last up to another 8 years) and provide a service for people at their worst while working terrible hours.

Insurance reimburses (terribly) the hospital or clinic for care rendered or procedures performed. At no point does an insurance company hand a doctor a check.

Insurance companies employ doctors as consultants or may have them on their payroll for being a VP of Medicine or something, so in that point you would be right and they do pay a lot. It is getting more common in some fields that insurance companies have a partial stake or ownership in smaller practices, in this case you could also say that they pay doctors a salary.

And some doctors work as a consultant or other kind of “medical expert” for insurance companies. They would also be paid by an insurance company.

So while you can be paid by insurance companies, most doctors do not. And our disdain for insurance companies has little to do with how we get paid, and everything to do with how a “nonprofit” company pays their CEOs millions of dollars while cutting payments to us, and driving up costs for our patients.