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The Article in Brief
Salary and Quality Compensation for Physician Practices Participating in Accountable Care Organizations
Andrew M. Ryan , and colleagues
Background There are many questions about how Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs)should be structured. This study examines one such structural issue: the approach practices in ACOs use to compensate primary care physicians.
What This Study Found Compensation arrangements for primary care physicians in ACOs are similar to those in practices that assume substantial risk for primary care costs. Based on physicians' compensation as the percentage of compensation based on salary, productivity, clinical quality or patient experience, and other factors, primary care physicians in ACO practices on average receive 49 percent of compensation from salary, 46 percent from productivity, 3 percent from quality and 2 percent from other factors. Physicians not in ACOs but with substantial risk for primary care costs receive two-thirds of their compensation from salary, nearly one-third from productivity and slightly more than 1 percent from quality and other factors. Although ACO practices provide higher compensation for quality compared with practices at large, they provide a similar mix of compensation based on productivity and salary.
Implications
- According to the authors, incentives for ACOs may not be sufficiently strong to encourage practices to change physician compensation policies for better patient experience, improved population health, and lower per capita costs.
Correction