ABSTRACT
This chapter helps to understand the physician's role and responsibility in the production of revenue and creates ways to optimize their participation in the system for delivery of care by aligning incentives in the direction most advantageous to the practice. The chapter assess the practice to determine changing financial needs on the basis of type and style of practice and focuses on the recruitment and retention of physicians on the most effective producers. It compensates fair and easy-to-understand standards for productivity. Having accurate and efficient informational systems available to provide physicians with routine data on patient care, utilization, and related financial indicators is a basic requirement for optimizing management of the practice. Annually, physician groups from around the United States exchange information to determine what productivity-compensation ratios exist by specialty and group size. Although the physician-patient encounter remains the focus of medical practice, the basis upon which compensation is determined changes from expenditures for services to maintaining health through education.
