Abstract
[This is an excerpt.] The purpose of this paper is to review what is known about the different methods for how third-party payers pay primary care health professionals and, in some cases, intermediary organizations to which health professionals may belong. The paper will not explore how the intermediary organization,whether a small or medium size practice or a large health care organization, compensates the clinicians who are either employed or otherwise affiliated with the organization. Findings from two recent surveys illustrate the crucial difference between the two different approaches to characterizing how primary care clinicians are paid or compensated. The final Center for Studying Health System Change Tracking Physician Survey published in 2009 found that the most common compensation arrangement for physicians was salary—nearly 70 percent (Boukus, Cassil, and O’Malley 2009). In contrast, an analysis of payment methods used for physicians conducted using the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) from 2010 found that that fee-for-service was the dominant method, constituting 93 percent of physician office visits (Zuvekas and Cohen 2010). Our interest are the payment methods payers—public and private—can use to pay physicians directly or to compensate organizations through which clinicians are employed or affiliated. [To read more, click View Resource.]
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Government: Optimizing Workload & Workflows (Advance Team-Based Care)
