Paying medical staff committee members
During our medical staff quality committee meeting, one member commented that committee members should be compensated for their time, especially when serving on committees that involve reviewing material prior to the meeting. What are your thoughts on compensating committee members? Should it be all committees or those that require additional time spent outside the actual meeting? Should we pay a flat fee across the board no matter what the physician’s specialty, or should the fee reflect the physician’s specialty?
As physicians are more pressed for time to devote to medical staff responsibilities, the burden falls unequally on some more than others. In the past, this was seen as a physician’s duty, and compensation was unheard of. Even today, in many medical staff cultures, physicians who are paid for nonclinical work, such as case management or serving as physician advisors or medical directors, are viewed as being “in the pocket” of administration.
So what is the right course? The response to this question should not be construed as either advocating or not advocating physician payment but as a way to begin discussion when approaching the issue with your staff.
There are really four decisions you must make to address this issue:
- Should you pay?
- Who should get paid?
- Who should pay?
- How much should you pay?
Source: Effective Peer Review