EyeWorld is the official news magazine of the American Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery.
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61 August 2014 OPHTHALMOLOGY BUSINESS • Satellite assignments • Staff assignments • Equipment decisions • Size and location of personal office • Time off • Fringe benefits • Voting rights • The percent of the practice owned • Partner buy-in and buy-out provisions EW compensation grievances. Any doctor should feel free to come to the committee at any time and say, "Conditions have changed in my segment, or the overall practice, and the current methodology is no longer fair." Finally, keep in mind that compensation is just one basis—one of many dependent variables—for a doctor thinking s/he's being handled fairly in a practice. Other elements include: • Access to patients • The fairness of internal cross referral • The level of marketing support • The ability to pursue lucrative sub- specialties, academics or research • The ability to control the admission of competing providers to the group • Work hours stand a monthly recap of how the formula has been applied to them— and should also have monthly evidence that their open receivables accounts are being worked as hard as everyone else's (I've stepped into settings where the lead partner had his accounts well collected and the junior doctors less so). Doctors in a group also need to work out how new patients and surgical cases are fairly assigned, so that opportunities are shared fairly. The compensation model should be examined formally every year for continued fairness, and in some settings it may even be appropriate for the model to sunset periodically and have to be voted back into place. Above a certain size, a practice should have a formal, standing compensation commit- tee of the board to handle doctor harmonious environment, where everyone is feeling generous. In a few settings, with argu- mentative partners, I've suggested a micro-allocation model, whereby practice costs are precisely divided. For example, a doctor is charged $X per hour that he uses a clinic, or $Y for every hour of tech time assigned to his pod. We have even charged by the box of Kim Wipes or jewelers forceps, as one would scan packs in an OR setting. This is a huge accounting chore but can prevent the breakup of such groups. Each of the above approaches or their hybrids may be more or less suitable depending on the setting. A compensation model that seems fair today can become unfair in a year or two as conditions change. Transparency is critical; all doctors should receive and under- digital.ophthalmologybusiness.org • Production instrument for simple and fast testing of IOL batches • Imaging technique close to real conditions • Measurement of all types of IOLs: including multifocal diffractive, trifocal, toric lenses and others • Measurement parameters: Power, Add power, Cylinder, MTF, toric marks, radius of curvature, through focus scans, energy distribution and others • In air or in situ conditions according to ISO 11979 standard • Traceability to international standard NPL and NIST IOL Testing Fast and Automated OptiSpheric ® IOL PRO 2 is the most comprehensive measurement system for any types of IOLs in production Visit us at ESCRS London Booth J17 AZ2 OS IOL PRO 2 254 x 165 mm_print 25.07.14 13:08 Seite 1 Mr. Pinto is president of J. Pinto & Associates Inc., an ophthalmic practice management consulting firm established in 1979, with offices in San Diego. He can be contacted at 619-223-2233 or pintoinc@aol.com. About the author