The NEJM Career Center covered recent trends in physician compensation models, including some slight shifts for greater flexibility and a trend toward value-based care. Author Bonnie Darves consulted with a number of healthcare leaders, professional association executives, and healthcare staffing experts for a comprehensive overview of a variety of trends in physician employment and reimbursement.
David Fontenot, president and co-founder of Adaptive Medical Partners, contributed to the discussion along with several other executives and physician staffing experts from the MGMA, NAPR, and more.
Below are a few industry experts’ observations discussed in the article:
- A modest 2.6 percent increase in primary care compensation and a slight decline (<1 percent) in income for surgeons, per the most recent MGMA compensation report.
- Healthcare employers learned that flexibility is paramount to successfully weather challenging times such as a global pandemic.
- An increased prevalence of quality metrics and value-based care reimbursements in physician contracts.
“The quality-based component has been steadily trending up over the last three to four years but transitioning from volume- to outcomes-based compensation is a delicate balancing act,” Mr. Fontenot said, in the persisting highly competitive physician-hiring market. “We almost never see traditional income guarantees anymore, though occasionally we’ll see employed-model offers with an option to shift to pure production compensation after a one- or two-year period,” he added. “What we are seeing, however, is hospital employers tinkering with hybrid structures — compensation models that blend quality incentives with work RVUs in an attempt to get closer to a value-based model,” he said.
A few other notable physician compensation trends revealed in the NEJM Career Center article include the following:
Competition for physicians is still extremely strong, and some employers are experimenting with new models and contract components, such as collections-based incentives, for example.
Some staffing experts noted an increase in demand for telemedicine jobs, as well as a growing pool of physicians seeking full-time 1099 status as independent contractors.
Additionally, fluctuations in patient volumes caused by the pandemic (and by physicians seeking better work/life balance) were observed by healthcare staffing experts.
For more physician hiring trends and physician candidate tips for navigating the latest compensation models, read the full report at the NEJM Career Center.
