Survey Data on Compensation for Anesthesiologists; Updated
The amount of physician compensation is one of the key issues in every negotiation between anesthesiologists and anesthesiology groups and hospitals or health systems. What is the fair market value for an anesthesiologist? And how much do you have to offer to attract him or her? There is no definitive set of data, just a handful of surveys, some free and some for sale at hefty prices. Practices that are sufficiently large or that have a long history often realize that their own internal information may be the best available. In the interest of covering as many bases as possible and providing the greatest amount of data on which interested readers may perform their meta-analyses, we bring to your attention the latest public physician compensation information, released last week by Modern Healthcare in its Physician Compensation: 2015 report.
For 2015, Modern Healthcare reports an average salary for anesthesiologists of $384,290, which comes from 11 different organizations: American Medical Group Association, Cejka Search, Compdata Surveys, ECG Management Consultants, Hay Group, Hospital & Healthcare Compensation Service, Jackson & Coker, Medicus, MGMA, Pacific Companies and Pinnacle Health. The range is from $321,666 to $445,043. (The report does not distinguish between academic and private practice.)
Medicare Conversion Factor Increase Effective July 1, 2015
As a result of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), the first of five scheduled 0.5% Medicare physician payment increases will go into effect July 1. This week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the updated RVU files reflecting the payment increase and new conversion factor, $35.9335 (previously $35.7547). The updated RVU files are located in a zip drive on this CMS webpage. Medicare Administrative Contractors are currently updating their payment systems in preparation for the payment increase. The next 0.5% payment increase is scheduled for Jan. 1, 2016 and subsequent 0.5% updates will take place at the beginning of each year through 2019.
