Plastic Surgery Shows Largest Call Coverage Per Diem Growth

Written by Dan Oppenheimer

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Previously, we examined which medical and surgical physician specialties are paid the largest per diem rates for call coverage contracts.  Today, we’ll look at MD Ranger’s 2017 Physician Contract Benchmarks and explore which call coverage agreements have had the largest dollar increases in their median call coverage rates since 2009.

The specialties with the largest dollar increases are Plastic Surgery, Obstetric Anesthesia, Obstetrics / Gynecology, Urology, and Cardiothoracic Surgery. These highest growth specialties have all seen rates rise by at least $200 per diem.  These gains are non-trivial: the annualized rate of increase is more than $73,000 per year.

This list of services with the highest growth in per diem rates since 2009 varies somewhat from last year, when the specialties showing the largest total growth were Obstetric Anesthesia, Cardiovascular Surgery, Neurosurgery, Cardiothoracic Surgery, and Anesthesia.  In particular we can see that Plastic Surgery has surged to the top of the chart, showing $225 of growth in median per diem rates.

Interestingly, however, although these services have shown marked increases since 2009, we have relatively small overall growth of per diem rates, particularly in the most commonly paid services.

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