Anesthesia Management: MGMA: No guarantees for physician on-call pay

I thought this was an interesting article for our readers. 

Physician on-call pay, while increasingly common, isn’t a guarantee, according to the Medical Group Management Association’s latest compensation survey.

Thirty-seven percent of the more than 2,500 providers surveyed reported that they received no extra pay for being on call, according to the MGMA’s On-Call Survey: 2014 Report Based on 2013 Data. Out of this sizable minority, however, one-third said they received additional time off in exchange for taking call duty.

“On-call rates for physicians are influenced by a number of factors, and compensation methodologies will likely continue to evolve,” Jeff Milburn of the MGMA Heath Care Consulting Group said in an announcement. “Healthcare organizations are working to recruit physicians in a competitive marketplace, so they may be extending opportunities for additional compensation to attract providers.”

As with previous surveys, practice size affected on-call rates. For instance, surgical specialists in groups with 76 or more full-time equivalent physicians reported the highest median daily rates. Meanwhile, nonsurgical specialists fared best if they belonged to practices with 25 or fewer FTEs.

Location was also a factor in determining on-call pay, with primary care physicians and nonsurgical specialists being the highest earners in the West, and surgical specialists commanding the highest rates in the South.

Several methods for calculating call pay exist, as FiercePracticeManagement reported previously. For example, some practices offer a set stipend for taking call duty while others use a relative-value-unit-based system.