With the advent of healthcare reform and the drive toward clinical integration, roles for physician executives have not only proliferated, they have broadened in scope. These roles and responsibilities reflect the growing importance of accountability for outcomes and emphasis on healthcare delivery transformation.
The course ahead requires physician executives to evaluate not only their compensation goals, but their strengths and aspirations as it relates to influencing their patients, peers, organizations and communities.
Extended Earning Potential
In an increasingly complex industry, the value of experience and need to encourage retention among veteran executives is growing, and there is an emerging opportunity for physician executives to progress in earning power longer into their careers.
There is a discernible shift taking place in the rate of increase throughout the physician executive career. From 2005 to 2011, the Physician Executive Compensation Survey reported little or no growth in compensation after a physician has spent more than 15 years in administration. However, in 2013, the rate of increase did not drop as significantly for those with 16 or more years of experience.
Changing Accountability
Though roles and responsibilities inevitably vary by title, physician executives allot the majority of their administrative time to:
- Performance: Oversight of quality, efficiency, clinical effectiveness, patient satisfaction or financial benchmarks and outcomes; execution of best practices, process improvement, and problem resolution and remediation;
- Medical Management: Clinical advisory, protocols, guidelines and services; population health and disease management; development of new care models; quality/risk management; and peer review;
- Quality Management: Patient safety, utilization review, medical protocol development, medical error reduction.
Physician executives are hungry for opportunities to develop skills that traditionally are not honed in medical school, including financial analysis, strategic planning, conflict resolution and project management. Forward-thinking organizations provide physicians opportunities to develop these skills with advanced management courses, leadership institutes and development programs.
The path to opportunity and earning power for physician executives primarily lies with key post-graduate management degrees, especially within the C-Level. Findings from the 2013 Physician Executive Compensation Survey indicate that there is a ten percent difference in median compensation between those holding an MBA and those with no post-graduate management degree.
Uncertainty and risk are part of the "new normal," but there is no question that there is an important and growing need for physicians who choose to embrace and cultivate a career in leadership. How is physician leadership cultivated in your organization?