For example, a physician group that is doing poorly financially may need its physician leader to be practicing and pulling in income, and so might compensate management duties at a low rate. Conversely, he says, a group that is doing well might want to pay its leader enough to raise performance even higher. Some multispecialty groups set their leaders' pay rates without regard to the individual's specialty.
Many organizations have complex physician pay plans.
Pay Is Percent of Clinic's Revenue At Preferred Medical Management in Portland, Ind., all managers, physician or otherwise, receive incentive pay, says Connie Lombardo, administrator of its practice management operations. Preferred owns the assets of three clinics and manages 10 more. A typical clinic has four physicians, one of whom is the medical director, plus two nurse practitioners. All the physicians are on incentive pay based on percentages of collections, paid by their physician groups. Many of Preferred's physicians pull in revenues far above benchmark averages.