Practices report gradual shifts toward tying pay to quality and patient satisfaction metrics

Quality measures are a small but possibly increasing percentage of total compensation for physicians, a recent report found.

According to the “MGMA Physician Compensation and Production Survey: 2014 Report Based on 2013 Data,” primary care physicians who were not part of an accountable care organization or a patient-centered medical home reported that an average of 5.96% of their total compensation was based on quality measures, compared to specialists, who reported that an average of 5.70% of their total compensation was based on them. Some groups of physicians, including anesthesiologists, internists, and hospitalists, reported that a greater percentage of their total compensation was tied to quality metrics. In 2012, primary care physicians and specialists reported that an average of 6.58% and 4.04%, respectively, of their total compensation was based on quality measures, but those data included primary care physicians who were part of an accountable care organization or patient-centered medical home.

Physician compensation is likely to be increasingly tied to these metrics as reimbursement is aligned more closely with quality and cost measures, the MGMA predicted in a press release last week.

Practices also said that patient satisfaction had a small role in physician compensation. For primary care physicians, the percentage of compensation tied to patient satisfaction increased slightly, while specialists reported that an average of 2.31% of their compensation was tied to patient satisfaction compared with 1.61% in 2012.

Both primary care physicians and specialists reported that compensation increased slightly in 2013, with medians of $232,989 and $402,233, respectively, versus $220,942 and $396,233 in 2012.