Survey: 50% of providers use patient satisfaction to drive doc payments

Fifty percent of 316 completed surveys from healthcare professionals are now using patient satisfaction scores to guide physician incentive payments, according to an October report from HealthLeaders Media Intelligence Unit. Fifty-seven percent use quality metrics.

Changes in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, healthcare reform and market competition are all driving change not only in how hospitals and health systems approach patient care, but also in how physician compensation models are taking shape, the report continued.

“As Medicare goes, so oftentimes, goes the commercial payor—physician rates generally change not long after. So people will make tweaks to their compensation models to be ready for the future,” wrote Jeffrey D. Limbocker, CFO of Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, La., and lead advisor for the report.

Conducted in July via an online survey, 65 percent said their physician compensation will remain relatively flat with increases of 1 to 4 percent. In addition, 56 percent responded that healthcare reform was a major influence on their compensation structure.

More than 50 percent of respondents identified themselves as senior leaders for their organization. Twenty-two percent of total respondents said physicians have little to no influence on creating compensation models at their organization.

“Salary plus incentive, along with productivity-based models, are the dominant compensation structures (40 and 34 percent, respectively),” the report stated. “Just 21 percent of respondents maintain models for more than five years.”

“It will be interesting to see how much reimbursement, and thus compensation, is put at risk based on factors other than productivity,” concluded Limbocker.