Transcript MEASURING FACULTY PRODUCTIVITY: How?

UPDATE ON
Faculty Productivity
Steven J. Barker, PhD, MD
University of Arizona
Amr Abouleish, MD
University of Texas, Galveston
November, 2002
SESSION GOALS
To develop and explain methods for
assessing the clinical productivity of
academic faculty & departments.
Make comparisons between clinical
departments and with private practice;
use to determine needed department
resources (FTE & $).
OUTLINE
of session
Steve Barker:
Review of “Perfect Storm” productivity
measures. A very crude start.
 Use productivity to determine number of
faculty & resources; contracts.

Amr Abouleish:
Refined, more accurate measures of
clinical productivity.
 What does all this mean to me?

Practice Overhead
for various specialties
Physician Specialty
Anesthesiology
Family Medicine
Internal Medicine
Neurology
OB/GYN
Ophthalmology
Orthopedics
Pathology
Pediatrics
Psychiatry
Radiology
Radiation Oncology
Surgery
Source: MGMA Cost Survey, 1997
Distribution of practice income
% MD Compensation % Overhead
90%
45%
50%
55%
50%
44%
57%
72%
48%
60%
72%
72%
64%
10%
56%
50%
45%
50%
56%
43%
28%
52%
40%
28%
28%
36%
Message: Anesthesia overhead expense is less than other depts.
And now, a little arithmetic…..
Anesthesiologist Clinical
Productivity:
RVU/provider/yr & $/RVU
for all anesth (MGMA-00) & acad anesth (MGMA-01)
25%-ile
Median
75%-ile
7,410
8,963
10,282
Comp./RVU(all)
$24.29
$26.90
$29.88
RVU/year(acad.)
3,466
5,097
7,423
RVU*/year(all)
*“Work-RVU” data reported to MGMA survey are ASA units.
By the way:
How do you measure your services in critical
care and pain in RVU?
Closest approximation:
Divide total charges in pain & CCM by
your usual/customary charge per unit.
e.g.: $1,200,000 in [CCM + Pain] charges, $60/unit 
20,000 RVU’s.
How to determine your
faculty salary budget
in an academic practice group, using
clinical productivity:
1) Find equivalent # of private practice MD’s:
Ideal FTE = (Dept. RVU)/(MGMA median)
Ideal FTE(UAz):
= 320,000/8,963
= 35.7 FTE
How to determine your
faculty salary budget (2)
2) Find the “ideal” budget for this #FTE
using MGMA median salary:
Ideal Sal Budget = (#FTE) X (MGMA$)
(UAz): = 35.7 X $280,353
= $10,008,602.
(2000 data)
How to determine your
faculty salary budget (3)
3) Divide total clinical practice income (all
depts), less overhead, by total of ideal
budgets; get “practice adjustment factor.”
Multiply by ideal budget:
Actual budget = (Ideal budget) X (Adj. factor)
(UAz)
= $10,008,602 X 0.56
= $5,604,817.
GOT IT?
CONTRACTS:
What Is Your
MAGIC NUMBER?
It’s your cost for one anesthesia unit, or
the conversion factor below which you
should never accept a contract.
To calculate it:
Divide the total department expense for
clinical care by the total number of RVU
produced: (total cost)/(total RVU)
But first . . . . .
MAGIC NUMBER (2)
You should subtract both the income (from
numerator) and the RVU’s (from
denominator) from contracts you cannot
control, i.e., Medicare and Medicaid:
Modified Magic Number (MMN)
= ($7.6M - $1.53M)/(320,000 – 95,667)
= $27.05/RVU
Special Deal:
“We’ll give you 120% of
Medicare”
OK, that’s 1.25 X $17.85/unit
= $22.31/unit
SO, you are losing only $27.05 - $22.31
= $4.74/unit
Make it up in volume?
DO NOT ACCEPT CONTRACTS
BASED ON CMS!!!!
References:
Barker SJ: “Lord or Vassal? Academic
Anesthesiology Finances in Year 2000”
Anesthesia and Analgesia 2001; 93: 294300.
Also: “The Perfect Storm”
SAAC/AAPD, 2000.
How to measure
ACADEMIC PRODUCTIVITY
What do you want to value?
Grants.
 Publications: papers vs. books?
 Teaching.
 Service: university, public, national.

How do you assign a “value” to these?

How to compare grants vs. national office?
CONCLUSIONS
There are benchmarks for clinical
productivity and compensation – use these
as tools. [More detail in next talk.]
Compare your clinical productivity with
other depts by this method –
anesthesiology will look very good!
Figure how to measure academic
productivity – then call me!
THE END
Compensation & Charges
Anesthesiology vs. other specialties
1994
Comp.
anes.
Charges
anes.
Comp.
all spec.
Charges
all spec.
FacultyComp
1996
1998
1999
change/yr
$244,600 $237,749 $250,200
0.57%
$475,303 $515,160 $633,591
8.32%
$212,183 $221,544 $231,993
2.34%
$560,000 $654,021 $724,275
7.33%
$167,839 $171,774 $177,161
1.85%