Becker's Hospital Review

18 CFO / FINANCE 2017 first year physician pay rose by less than 2% in decade, study says By Megan Knowles L ast year was the first year phy- sician pay rose by less than 2 percent in over a decade, the American Medical Group Association's Medical Group Compensation and Productivity Survey found. The survey includes data for 140 physi- cian specialties and 27 other provider specialties, with breakdowns by region and group size. Survey responses came from 270 large, multispecialty medical groups and integrated health systems, repre- senting over 105,000 clinical provid- ers. The average number of providers per participant group was about 380. About 72 percent of respondents were AMGA members. The national median revealed a com- pensation increase of just 0.89 per- cent overall, and changes in provider productivity and compensation varied by specialty, the survey found. The weighted average change in median compensation in all medical special- ties during 2017 was 1.2 percent. Here are the 2017-18 percentage changes for physician compensation in eight specialties highlighted in AM- GA's survey: 1. Cardiac/thoracic surgery: 6.4 percent increase 2. Emergency medicine: 1 percent increase 3. General surgery: 0.7 percent increase 4. OB-GYN (general): 0.9 percent increase 5. Ophthalmology: 2.3 percent decrease 6. Orthopedic surgery: 0.9 percent increase 7. Otolaryngology: 0.4 percent increase 8. Urology: 0.1 percent decrease n Centene CEO: Physician acquisition spree not in playbook By Morgan Haefner U nitedHealth Group, Humana and other national health insurers may be on a provider acquisition spree, but Centene Corp.'s CEO said acquiring clinics and physician practices is not part of its strategy, according to a Forbes report. While Centene signed a definitive agreement to buy Community Medical Group, an at-risk primary care provider serving 70,000 government-insured beneficiaries in Florida, the health insurer's CEO told analysts during Centene's second quarter earnings call the acquisition is "scalable," but not the new norm. "We're not out there buying all the practices we can and all the clinics that we can," Centene CEO Michael Neidorff said. He later added: "We are not trying to buy clinics and have clinics in every market. We are focused where they're needed or where there's a group of physicians that are now going to work with it." Centene's comment comes as its rival UnitedHealth's Optum picked up DaVita Medical Group for $5 billion in cash, according to Forbes. Likewise, Humana and two private equity firms finalized agreements to purchase two providers offering outpatient, home care and hospice services: Curo Health and Kindred Healthcare. Centene told analysts it will focus on increasing access to its Medicare Advantage and ACA individual marketplace plans. n Childhood cancer survivors often struggle financially, study finds By Kelly Gooch M any adult survivors of child- hood cancer are experiencing financial hardship associated with susceptible sociodemographic sta- tus and later medical effects, according to a study by investigators at Memphis, Tenn.-based St. Jude Research Hospital. e study, published Aug. 1 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, exam- ined the determinants and consequences of financial hardship among 2,811 long- term childhood cancer survivors. e study found many of these cancer survivors face costly follow-up testing, along with potential insurance problems and work disruptions, if they experience side effects from previous treatment, ac- cording to e Washington Post. e Post reported about one-third of study participants skipped or delayed needed screenings, recommended med- ications or medical appointments due to financial concerns, and that half were concerned about being able to cover their care. e study's lead author, I-Chan Huang, told the Post lack of insurance coverage for needed screenings, such as mammograms and testing for heart disease caused by ra- diation, contributed to some of the patients' financial struggles. "A substantial proportion of adult sur- vivors of childhood cancer experienced financial hardship," the study's authors concluded. "Survivors with financial hardship had an increased risk of symp- tom prevalence and impaired health-re- lated quality of life." n

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