Changing reimbursements and reducing physicians clinical revenue, can redefine the medical practice in an academic center?
Due to the changes in reimbursement and decrease in physician revenues for the hospital, different medical centers specially academic centers where time of the faculty is divided between clinical practice, teaching and research, face new challenges.
So far they have dealt with it in two different ways:
- Reducing the physician compensation
- Increasing the clinical work hour
Both solutions will create unsatisfactory conditions defying the nature of an academic center:
- Unhappy physicians ready to leave the practice, loosing the expert force and settling with less experienced work force
- Reducing time dedicated to teaching
- Affecting negatively the research activities
Any thoughts or suggestions?
from the employer side, transparency in compensation and expectations need to be clearly delineated, once there is uncertainty or confusion in these dissatisfaction arises.
from the physicians’ standpoint realistic expectations must be sought.
It is the most common mistake done all over the world.
Managements and governments think that academics and teachers are overpaid and under-utilised.Any decrease/cost cutting in salary or compensation will attract only the lower levels of talent for these posts thereby, in the long run severely affecting the quality and standard of teaching and will churn out only future incompetent doctors from the system.
If a hospital wants to be a teaching hospital too, it should definitely factor these in and decide accordingly.Maybe some financial grants or tax rebates from government will help in order to realise the worldwide goal of GOOD TRAINING FOR DOCTORS ultimately benefitting the society only and essentially very important necessity for society.