ST. LOUIS, Oct. 7, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ECG Management Consultants, Inc., one of the nation's premier healthcare management consulting firms, today announced findings from its fifth annual National Pediatric Subspecialty Physician Compensation, Production, and Benefits Survey.
The pediatric survey is recognized as the leading industry source of provider compensation and production benchmarks in the pediatric subspecialty market. ECG's pediatric survey provides an in-depth review of pediatric subspecialty market trends, including provider compensation, production, and benefit packages; compensation plan design and metrics; recruiting efforts and signing bonuses by specialty; malpractice premiums by specialty; and numerous other key data points.
ECG's 2011 survey contains provider-level data for more than 3,600 pediatric subspecialist providers practicing within 42 subspecialties. The pediatric survey provides its members with timely and reliable benchmarks for medical, surgical, and hospital-based pediatric subspecialties, with sample sizes that typically exceed those in other national industry surveys.
General findings in the 2011 pediatric survey based on 2010 data are as follows:
- Physician compensation for pediatric medical subspecialties remained flat, while WRVU production increased by 5.3 percent over 2010. Therefore, medical subspecialists realized a decline in production-adjusted compensation as a result of stable compensation on higher WRVUs.
- Pediatric surgical subspecialists, in aggregate, experienced the largest gains of the survey in several metrics, including compensation, WRVUs, and net professional collections. Furthermore, compensation per WRVU for surgical subspecialists increased, driven by compensation accelerating at a faster pace than WRVU production.
- Survey members paid less for overall physician benefits in 2011, which may be attributed, in part, to organizations shifting benefit costs to the physicians. As evidence, 73 percent of organizations have migrated to partial coverage of healthcare insurance premiums for the physician, spouse, and dependents.
- Overall, survey members invest at least 6 months of effort to fill 71 percent of open positions. They also report a medium to high level of difficulty in recruiting 87 percent of open positions.
- Utilization of midlevel providers continues to increase as organizations leverage existing pediatric subspecialists, improve access to care, and attempt to control provider costs. Of survey members, 88 percent indicated that midlevel provider recruitment and employment is necessary to address the pediatric subspecialty physician shortage.
- While wait times improved in 67 percent of reported specialties, 62 percent of specialties do not meet the prevailing wait times benchmark of 2 weeks for the third next available appointment.
- A majority of survey members intend to modify their compensation plans to include nonproduction-based components to prepare for and better align with value-based healthcare. Components for quality and patient satisfaction are the most frequently reported metrics to be added, by 77 and 69 percent of organizations, respectively.
"Shortages among pediatric subspecialty physicians and surgeons persist and will for the near future," comments Mr. Kenneth A. Roorda, Principal and leader of ECG's Children's Hospital practice. "At the same time, payments to children's hospitals and pediatric physicians from Medicaid programs are under increased pressure due to state budgetary crises. Alignment discussions among local and regional providers are increasingly centered around financial pressures, physician shortages, and the desire to demonstrate value-based care. The availability of current, reliable physician practice benchmarks will be critical to decision making in this environment."
"We are extremely pleased by the level of participation in the 2011 survey, increasing by nearly 30 percent over 2010. We strongly believe that the commitment and involvement of our survey members with our survey team has led to our success as the leading industry source of physician performance benchmarks in the pediatric subspecialty market," said Ms. Maria C. Hayduk, Senior Manager with ECG and head of its custom survey and proprietary research efforts. "ECG is committed to continuing to grow and enhance our survey products for our members and our clients. In 2011, we introduced ECGVault, our online benchmarking portal made exclusively available to the 114 member organizations of the 2011 ECG provider compensation surveys, including members of our Northwest, Midwest, Southeast, and National Pediatric Subspecialty surveys."
ECG Survey Methodology
The National Pediatric Subspecialty Physician Compensation, Production, and Benefits Survey is developed in partnership with leaders from many of the nation's premier children's hospitals and pediatric organizations and ECG's physician compensation and production experts. Extraordinary lengths are taken to ensure data quality and validity. Raw survey data is reviewed by ECG's professionals, who identify outliers for verification by the survey's participants; if data cannot be validated, it is removed. At the conclusion of this process, ECG converts the raw data into succinct, proprietary information.
About ECG Management Consultants, Inc.
ECG offers a broad range of strategic, financial, operational, and technology-related consulting services to healthcare providers. With more than 110 professionals, ECG provides specialized expertise in developing and implementing innovative and customized solutions that effectively address hospital/physician relationships, strategic and business planning, specialty program development, information technology, and the complexities of the academic healthcare enterprise. ECG has offices in Boston, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C.
Contact: Ms. Kathryn A. Sweyer
ECG Management Consultants, Inc.
ksweyer@ecgmc.com
Telephone: 206-689-2200
Fax: 206-689-2209
www.ecgmc.com
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