Non-Clinical Compensation: Looking at New Data from MedAxiom?s Annual Survey

Thursday, September 17, 2015 | Joel Sauer

I am happy to report that MedAxiom has just published its 3rd annual Cardiovascular Provider Compensation & Production Survey. These data, obtained from our vast cardiovascular membership, provide invaluable peer comparisons to programs trying to manage themselves at peak performance—more and more a prerequisite for success in the tightening economics of healthcare.

There is no question that healthcare, as an industry, is changing at an unprecedented pace. The volume-to-value train has clearly left the station. At MedAxiom, we believe data sharing and peer-to-peer networking provide the most powerful means for advancing cardiovascular programs nationally. So, over the next few months, I will be highlighting key insights and takeaways from the survey on this blog. To download the full survey report click HERE.

Let’s start with some of the very new information. For the first time, the survey contains valuable data for non-clinical compensation, including administrative (leadership) positions, medical directorships and at-risk incentive compensation.

This provides critical insight into value-oriented compensation for our fair market valuators, allowing programs to better align provider compensation with the new value economy. The eight key measures capturing “value-based” compensation payments to cardiovascular physicians are shown below (Table 5a).

There are several interesting results worthy of attention. The single largest bucket is for “Hospital/Health System Incentive Available” at a median level of $30,000 per physician. Given the median size of the group that responded, this represents a total pool available approaching $600,000 per year. This money is in some fashion tied to performance outcomes and therefore, is at risk. When looking at its companion measure, “Hospital/Health System Incentive Earned,” we see that these performance measures had some real substance behind them and were a challenge to succeed, as the median achieved was 80 percent of the total available.

When you consider all of the compensation earned for these non-clinical “value” activities they total over $45,000 per FTE physician. This represents 8.4 percent of the median compensation for a cardiologist. The two at-risk components (Hospital/Health System Incentive Available and Non-Governmental Payor Incentive Available) total more than $40,000 per FTE, so the majority of this compensation is performance based.

Stay tuned . . . next time we will look closely at the Cardiology trends from the survey.

 

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