CHICAGO - In an effort to measure productivity to determine raises, promotions and bonuses, more department administrators are looking at the Medicare-defined relative value units, or RVUs, racked up by radiologists. But merely totaling those units doesn't provide an accurate gauge of a radiologist's output.
Dr. Peter L. Davis, of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, reported on the value of using RVUs to measure productivity and how to calculate them more equitably in a study presented Tuesday in an RSNA scientific session.
Dr. Davis looked at the productivity of the six full-time radiologists in Pittsburgh's abdominal imaging department in 1997. Researchers assigned the appropriate RVU value for each procedure performed, and then summed the year-long total for each physician, which ranged widely from 5,500 to nearly 9,500 RVUs.
But it was clear from looking at the radiologist's schedules that their work assignments also varied substantially. Based on personal preferences and other considerations, for example, one radiologist was assigned to work the CT caseload three times more often than colleagues.
When the RVU totals were segmented by service type, such as computed tomography or ultrasound, the mean RVU range for each radiologist was far narrower, from a high of 57-75 RVUs per day for ultrasound, to a low of 22-25 for GI-GU work. Thus the wide variation in RVUs between physicians appeared to be more a function of the type of work performed.
"If RVUs are used as a measurement of productivity, the yearly raw total can give an inaccurate assessment of what the actual individual radiologist's productivity is compared to others, even within a relatively homogeneous group of physicians," Dr. Davis said.
Dr. Davis said the results opened the door to several possible methods of normalizing RVU counts among radiologists, including "normalizing by the number of days in each duty service, or normalizing by the mean daily RVU."
By Eric BarnesAuntMinnie.com staff writer
December 1, 1999
