And It’s Back to Straight Salary
The huge Geisinger Health System has announced that they did away with physician bonuses altogether this summer and put all of its 1,600 employed doctors on a straight salary. They are going to pay each physician at or above the national average whether in primary care or a specialty.
So what happens to some of these things?
- Alternative payment models, or APMs
- Value-based reimbursement
- Quality, cost and satisfaction measures
- 50/50 split next year between RVUs and patient sign-ups
- Value metrics
Don’t worry, they aren’t going anywhere They may hide for a while but these ridiculous models are like sand people and like Obi-Wan Kenobi said, “They’ll soon be back and in greater numbers”.
Why? Because this is what administrators do. If you take away their toys then they lose their jobs. And you know that ain’t going to happen.
All their bullshit toys, excuses, and metrics are designed to do one and only one thing; rip their docs off – plain and simple.
And for the record, they arent going to pay anything near the national average. They’ll say it’s an “adjusted average” which will most likely be 85% of whatever low ball average they find. I guarantee it. But hey, their docs don’t even have any contracts so the administrators can say and do whatever they want.
A word of advice. RUN!