Productivity incentives for doctors still dominate compensation, study shows

[CAL/AAEM News Service]

Productivity incentives for doctors still dominate compensation, study shows

Source: AHA News Now (http://www.ahanews.com)
Date: January 4, 2007


The proportion of physicians in group practice whose compensation is based partly on
quality measures has increased from 17.6% to 20.2% between 2000-2001 and 2004-2005, but
far more physicians face financial incentives linked to individual productivity,
according to a study (http://www.hschange.com/CONTENT/906/) released today by the Center
for Studying Health System Change (HSC). However, the study showed that compensation
based on individual productivity was still physicians’ predominant financial incentive in
2004-2005, affecting 70.4% of all physicians in group practice. Nearly three in four
physicians with productivity-based compensation – comprising 52% of all physicians in the
study - said these incentives were a very important factor determining their
compensation. In contrast, 44% of physicians subject to quality-related incentives – or
9% of all physicians in the study - said these incentives were very important to their
compensation. “Physician practices’ heavy reliance on productivity-based compensation,
which reflects the dominant fee-for-service reimbursement system used by payers, likely
increases the cost of care by encouraging the provision of more services to patients,”
said HSC President Paul Ginsburg. HSC is funded principally by the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation.



Cyrus Shahpar & Brian Potts 
Managing Editors, CAL/AAEM News Service
University of California, Irvine

The CAL/AAEM Archives are available at: http://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/public/calaaem/




 
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