A new survey finds that the country’s primary care physicians generated more revenue for their affiliated hospitals than did the hospitals’ specialists.
According to a survey conducted by physician search and consulting firm Merritt Hawkins, in 2012, primary care physicians (family practice, general internal medicine and pediatrics) generated an average net revenue of $1,566,165 while specialists generated $1,424,917.
Merritt Hawkins said in a press release about the survey results that this is the first time primary physicians have generated more money for their affiliated hospitals than specialists did since the consulting firm began such surveys in 2002.
For the 2013 Physician Inpatient/Outpatient Revenue Survey, Merritt Hawkins sent out more than 3,000 surveys to hospital chief financial officers and healthcare facility managers. Merritt Hawkins received 102 completed surveys, and notes in its survey results that the number of completed surveys varied by specialty and that smaller hospitals (fewer than 100 beds) are over-represented in the survey results.
The increase in revenue generated by primary care physicians at hospitals is indicative of the rising role primary care doctors are playing as healthcare reform begins pushing the system more towards prevention, medical homes and having the primary care physician be the core of care coordination said Phil Miller, vice president of communications for Merritt Hawkins.
It also illustrates the trend of hospitals employing more primary care physicians, he noted. Primary care physicians, Miller said, have been seen by hospitals as a way to increase admissions and referalls. “If employment is a strategy to sort of capture some of that, I think it probably works, and I think that’s the main thing you’re seeing here,” he said.
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The survey also broke down how much revenue physicians (specialists and primary care) bring in to hospitals in comparison to their average salaries or income guarantees used in recruiting physicians. The salary/income guarantee information comes from Merritt Hawkins’ 2012 Review of Physician Recruiting Incentives.
A family practice physician, for instance, generates more than $2 million in revenue and is paid an average salary of $189,000. A neurosurgeon generates nearly $1.7 million in revenue and earns an average salary of $669,000.
“Primary care doctors have always been a very good bargain in terms of cost benefits,” Miller said. “They’ve always been a little undervalued, probably, for their ability to contribute to the hospital’s bottom line, but with this survey I think it becomes a little bit more demonstrable.”
While the revenue-to-salary data comparison is offered by Merritt Hawkins as a cost-benefit analysis for organizations recruiting physicians, the data may be used by physicians themselves to negotiate compensation from hospitals. But, said Miller, the leverage provided by this sort of data only goes so far.
“There is a ceiling to all of these things because the hospital can only stand to lose so much on the doctor’s practice,” he said. “(The hospitals) would like to be able to break even or even make money on that.”