Pediatricians generated less revenue for hospitals in 2015 than in 2012, as did primary care physicians in general, while physicians overall increased the revenue generated over that time, according to physician recruitment firm Merritt Hawkins.
Pediatricians generated average net revenue of $666,000 in 2015, down by 15.5% from $788,000 in 2012, when Merritt Hawkins last conducted its survey of hospital chief financial officers. For primary care physicians, the 2015 figure was $1.4 million, compared with $1.56 million in 2012 – a drop of 10.5%.
Those declines “may be a result of risk-bearing reimbursement models, where primary care physicians and their employers are penalized for exceeding budgets,” the report suggested. Another factor in the decline may be decreased productivity among physicians employed by hospitals. A survey of over 20,000 physicians conducted in 2014 by Merritt Hawkins indicated that employed physicians saw 8.5% fewer patients per day than did independent physicians.
Net revenue generated by physicians in all 18 specialties measured averaged almost $1.6 million in 2015, which was up 7.7% over the $1.5 million generated in 2012. Average revenue for specialists was up 12.8%, going from $1.4 million in 2012 to $1.6 million in 2015.
The survey (available for download here) was completed by 74 hospital chief financial officers. Despite the small number, Merritt Hawkins said that the “results are reliable and accurate, in large part because the overall number for average annual revenue generated by all physician specialties for their affiliated hospitals has remained virtually unchanged” over the course of six surveys spanning 14 years.