In a Hospital Impact piece, Tom Dobosenski, president of AMGA Consulting, looks at the intersection of physician compensation and value-based payment systems. Among his remarks:
“Value-based care delivery also focuses on high-cost, high-need patients. If patient mix is unaccounted for in productivity measures, this could threaten physicians’ compensation, given the longer visits needed for complex patients. To this end, we’re seeing a shift—which we expect to accelerate—from measuring physician productivity by pure relative value units to a model that reflects variations in patient mix.
“If your schedule system is based on a 15-minute average visit and 50 percent of your patients are Medicare patients who are older than 65, it may be impossible to meet productivity goals. This will only contribute to the frustration driving physician burnout.
“In sum, the 2017 report shows that where the delivery and payment system goes, compensation will follow, but we have serious challenges ahead for creating compensation models if compensation continues to rise and productivity remains flat. ”
To read his entire piece, please hit this link.
