Incentive Plans Playing Bigger Role in Physician Earnings

Many hospital employed opportunities as well as private practice salaries or shared earnings in partnerships are becoming more affected by incentive plans. RVU based incentives based on the individual physician's volume and revenue have played a part in physician compensation for awhile both in private practice opportunities and hospital employment positions, however now other incentive plans are also gaining popularity.

Particularly amongst hospital employment positions physicians are being compensated based on patient satisfaction, readmissions, clinical outcomes, and other performance metrics.

The Hay Group's "2010 Physician Compensation: Prevalence and Planning Report" found that 69% of the health care organizations surveyed used some kind of annual incentive plan in 2010 for employed physicians, which is up from 2008 which reported 49% of health care organizations based some physician compensation on annual incentives.

Physician's income, particularly in hospital employment positions, has become more of a base salary model with these types of incentives rewarded on top of base salaries.

Read the full article in American Medical News, or click here:
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/10/04/bise1004.htm