Thomson Reuters Announces 100 Top Hospitals Award Winners for 2011
Last month, the 2011 Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals award winners list was released. This year's winners where chosen from nearly 3,000 U.S. hospitals and award-winning facilities which demonstrated that high-quality patient outcomes can be achieved while improving efficiency. The article accompanying the 100 Top Hospitals list includes new research and an analysis of regional performance, including five-year trends. Thomson Reuters found that all hospitals have made noteworthy improvements in mortality, core measures, and length of stay. Hospitals in the Midwest continue to dominate their winners’ list, with half of all winners located in the Midwest census region.
Now Accepting Participants - 2011 Physician Compensation and Productivity Survey
The SullivanCotter survey is recognized as one of the industry’s leading and most comprehensive reports on physician total compensation and productivity.
Last year’s report contained data from 351 health care organizations comprising 215 physician, PhD, and mid-level provider (MLP) specialties as well as eight medical group executive positions.
Data were reported on the total cash compensation (TCC) levels paid to 58,626 physicians, residents, PhDs, MLPs, and Medical Group Executives. The report also contains productivity data (TCC, collections, gross patient charges, and wRVUs) and productivity ratios for staff physicians (TCC to collections, TCC to gross patient charges, TCC per wRVU, and collections per wRVU).
Learn more about how your organization can particpate today
Health Care On-Call Pay Continues To Rise
Most clinicians who provide call coverage for a hospital, whether employed by that hospital or not, have seen increases in pay for providing this service, according to the 2010 Physician On-Call Pay Survey Report, based on the sixth annual survey from compensation consultancy SullivanCotter.
The survey report, with data from 148 U.S. healthcare organizations, describes current physician on-call pay practices and rates paid for 40 physician specialty areas at both trauma and nontrauma centers. Key trends reported by survey participants include the following:
- 55 percent said their physician on-call pay expenditures have increased within the past 12 months.
- From 2007 to 2010, median on-call expenditures reported by trauma centers more than doubled, from $1.2 million in 2007 to $2.4 million in 2010.
- For nontrauma centers, the median expenditure in 2007 was $433,849, compared to $798,000 in 2010.
- 95 percent of the survey participants provide on-call pay to at least some of their nonemployed physicians with admitting privileges.
- 65 percent provide on-call pay to at least some of their employed physicians; 27 percent who don't pay extra for call factor this duty into physicians' salaries.
- 27 percent pay for "excess call only," meaning that providers are only compensated for call after exceeding a specified number of shifts per month or year.
- 15 percent compensate physicians who respond to call by phone but are not required to present at the hospital.
Key variables affecting physician on-call pay rates include the rates of local and national market benchmarks, frequency of the call coverage provided, the likelihood of being called in for service, payer mix and compensation received when called. Thus, rates - and likelihood of getting paid for call - varied dramatically by specialty.
Strategic Physician Leadership Development: A White Paper for Health System Executives
The emerging healthcare environment has changed the game for healthcare organizations and for physician leadership. That environment is going to require what could be called “agile organizations” and those organizations are going to rely on many more physicians in formal and informal leadership roles and in much more collaborative relationships with administrative leaders.
Developing that level of physician leadership will include not only building leadership competencies, but also the leadership structure and roles for physicians and the relationships that make it all work.
Fortunately, there are some shortcuts for CEOs in getting started along with guiding questions for developing physician leadership structures and roles and models of effective competency building approaches that can provide direction.
Projected Corporate Governance Trends for Nonprofit Hospitals and Health Systems - 2011
Competitive Physician Compensation Models
Healthcare financial executives need to understand valuation methodology to ensure legal and regulatory compliance. When developing and reviewing their physician compensation programs, healthcare organizations should:
- Understand the market data
- Test outcomes of incentive plans for fair market value
- Check total compensation for fair market value and reasonableness
Structuring competitive physician compensation arrangements can be a challenge for healthcare organizations trying to balance complex regulatory requirements against strategic business decisions, physician satisfaction concerns, and a highly competitive physician labor market. Many healthcare organizations are employing greater numbers of physicians to achieve physicianalignment and vertical integration. These organizations are increasingly faced with developing novel and more sophisticated physician compensation programs that will attract and retain physicians, often including productivity-based incentive compensation or rewards for high-quality outcomes. As healthcare organizations develop and review their physician compensationprograms, they should keep in mind the legal and regulatory framework that governs hospital payments to physicians as well as valuation concerns.
Dodd-Frank: The Spillover Impact on Nonprofit Healthcare
Let’s get this straight at the top: Dodd-Frank does not specifically apply to nonprofit healthcare. It wasn’t written with the healthcare sector in mind. It does not directly affect the framework that regulates nonprofit healthcare. It was not enacted to address any practices or abuses that are prevalent in nonprofit healthcare. Unlike Sarbanes-Oxley, it does not contain any general provisions applicable to public and nonprofit companies alike.
So why should we care? Why read any further?
Well, we care for a bunch of fairly significant reasons. Ultimately, we care because it is ademonstration of Congress’ ability to remake regulation of an entire industry in abreathtaking, sweeping manner—especially when there is a perception that the priorframework of industry regulation didn’t work.
More specifically, we care because the Act has the potential to have a noteable spilloverimpact on at least four key areas of nonprofit hospital operations: enterprise riskmanagement (ERM), corporate governance, corporate compliance and, perhaps mostsignificantly, executive compensation. If history serves as any guide, the basic regulatorythemes present in Dodd-Frank are likely to re-appear “somewhere down the road,” in amanner that impacts nonprofit healthcare.
Read the full article here.