MANAGED CARE October 1999. ©1999 MediMedia USA
That seems to be the message for primary care physicians in data collected by the Medical Group Management Association, in a survey of 1,600 practices representing 30,000 physicians. MGMA found that practices in 1998 that saw increases in capitation revenue also rode "predictable" compensation-level curves. Family practitioners who derived more than half their income from capitation had higher revenues than those who depended less on this form of payment, but for primary care in general, the differences were small. Specialists going through the same transformation saw a different dynamic: Their incomes, for the most part, continued to decline as their practices moved into higher levels of capitation.
SOURCE: MGMA, PHYSICIAN COMPENSATION AND PRODUCTION SURVEY: 1999 REPORT BASED ON 1998 DATA