Following four years of steady increases, heart doctors’ compensation dropped by nearly 8 percent.
That’s according to MedAxiom’s 2014 Provider Compensation & Productivity Report, which also found that cardiologists’ productivity dipped by nearly 5 percent.
The pace of transition from private practice into integrated models — either through hospital employment or professional services agreements — slowed down in 2013, which partially explains the compensation pullback, according to MedAxiom.
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Physicians in an integrated setting, in fact, continue to out-earn their private peers by more than 30 percent. Indeed, those independent doctors saw overall compensation drop almost 9 percent.
Contrary to the earning figures, however, private physicians in 2013 out-produced their integrated peers by almost 6 percent.
Geography continues to play a role in compensation as well. Physicians in the Midwest hold the top compensation spot ($559,004 median) with those in the Northeast at the bottom ($460,815 median).
Changes to the business
It’s not bad news for everyone. Interventional cardiologists, for instance, still ruled the day, pulling in a median of $558,824.
The cardiology mix of business continues to change as well, but unlike in years past where the trends were all downward, physicians achieved varied results in 2013.
New patients per cardiologist, for instance, increased slightly as did the total number of cognitive encounters. The ratio of work performed in the hospital versus the outpatient setting inched back up for a second straight year — somewhat contradicting conventional wisdom on the migration of inpatient to outpatient nationally.
For other key volumes like catheterizations and Percutaneous Cardiac Interventions, the survey found that declines have hit bottom and are beginning to stabilize, while non-invasive imaging saw further erosion.
MedAxiom’s research is based on data submitted by 134 cardiology programs representing 2,554 cardiologists across the country. Of those responding groups, 97 are integrated and 37 remain private practices.

Author : Frank Irving