Colorado Springs Medical Briefs: December 14, 2007

Hospitals and medical groups are reporting a decrease in doctor compensation, according to Sullivan, Cotter and Associates.

The 15th edition of the group's Physician Compensation and Productivity Survey Report outlines base salaries, cash compensation and productivity, incentive compensation, doctor benefits, resident compensation, hourly rates and on-call rates. About 260 organizations participated in the survey.

Seventeen percent of respondents reported a decrease in cash compensation levels for some of their physicians, slightly less than the 21 percent reporting lower pay during 2006.

Organizations continue to rely heavily on incentive programs to compensate doctors. On average, incentive awards for doctors last year were 21 percent of base salaries and awards for primary care physicians were 17 percent of base salaries.

For the first time, emerging specialties such as laborists, surgicalists and nocturnists were surveyed.

"The total cash compensation levels paid to these physicians seems to be slightly lower than the compensation levels paid for physicians within their respective specialties," said Kim Mobley, director of the survey.

Overall salary increases during 2006 for specialists were 4.5 percent. For primary care physicians, the overall average salary increase was 4.3 percent.

The 2007 survey also showed that nearly 48 percent of respondents provided on-call pay to at least some of their doctors. Orthopedic surgeons, trauma surgeons and neurosurgeons most frequently received on-call pay.

The report is available for purchase at www.sullivancotter.com.

Diabetes report due in Jan.

More than 1,300 employees, dependents and retirees have enrolled in the Diabetes 10 City Challenge during the past two years -- and the group will be releasing data based on their tests during January.

The program is now available to employers across the country as HealthMapRx. More than 50 employers are using the model to fight diabetes, asthma, depression and other chronic diseases.

The Diabetes 10 City Challenge was created by the American Pharmacists Association, an employer-based diabetes self-management program supported by GlaxoSmithKline.

The program, which was initially established in 10 cities across the country, including Colorado Springs, creates a voluntary employee health benefit, provides incentives through waived co- payment for diabetes medications and supplies and is the only program in the country that helps people track key diabetes indicators.

The purpose is to determine whether the self-management model can work for public and private employers in different geographic locations.

Employers work with the APhA Foundation's Diabetes Self- Management Credential curriculum to teach participants about diabetes.

Nearly 21 million people in the United States have diabetes, but 6.2 million do not know they have the disease. Diabetes can cause heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney failure, pregnancy complications, lower extremity amputations and deaths related to flu and pneumonia.

CMS to send provider survey

Local health care providers will soon have the opportunity to evaluate the performance of the government contractors that process and pay more than $280 billion in Medicare claims each year.

The survey offers providers the opportunity to assist process improvement efforts for contractors. The federal government uses the results as an additional measure to evaluate contractor performance, requiring all contractors to achieve performance targets no later than 2009.

The survey is designed to gather information about provider satisfaction levels with the key services that comprise the provider- contractor relationship. It focuses on seven major parts of the relationship -- provider inquiries, provider outreach and education, claims processing, appeals, provider enrollment, medical review, and provider audit and reimbursement.

The results of the other surveys -- which are available to health care providers and contractors on Medicare's Web site -- showed that 85 percent of respondents rated their contractors at the upper end of the scale.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is sending the 2008 survey to about 35,000 providers, including physicians and other health care practitioners, suppliers and institutional facilities that serve Medicare beneficiaries.

Providers selected to participate will be notified by the end of this month. Survey results will be available during July.

More information is available at: www.cms.hhs.gov/MCPSS .

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