An example of clinical salary benchmarking for an Ophthalmology Associate Professor (this exercise requires a copy of the MGMA 2005 Academic Practice Compensation and Production Survey Report - if you would like to order it, click here).

Working assumptions:  The Ophthalmologist is well experienced and produces approximately 8,000 Work RVUs annually. However, he currently spends one day per week out of five at the Veterans Administration Teaching Hospital but does not plan to attend at the VA in the future.

The number of Work RVUs he is capable of producing in the future is approximately 25% greater than the 8,000 actual Work RVUs he typically produced when he attended at the VA (4 days of clinical practice plus one new day by eliminating the VA day: 1 divided by 4 = 25%).The Work RVUs he is capable of producing could be estimated at 10,000 (8,000 plus 25% = 10,000).

How to use benchmarking data:  Look at page 112 of the MGMA 2005 Academic Practice Compensation and Production Survey and note that the original 8,000 Work RVUs is almost exactly equal to the 7,966 Work RVUs shown for the 75th Percentile of Ophthalmologists surveyed and the adjusted Work RVUs of 10,000 falls close to the Work RVU 90th percentile of 11,183 for Ophthalmologists.

Now turn to page 64 of MGMA Survey which identifies percentile levels of compensation, the 75th percentile of total compensation for Ophthalmolgists is $246,127. However, the 90th percentile of total compensation is $340,337, nearly a $100,000 difference.

To allow some flexibility in using these tables and lessen the variation of nearly $100,000 to something more manageable, try this. Calculate an approximate dollar value of compensation for each RVU generated.

For the 75th percentile of Work RVUs produced, the calculation is: $246,127 / 7,966 = $30.90; and similarly, the 90th percentile calculation is: $340,337 / 11,183 = $30.43. The estimated compensation level for the 10,000 Work RVUs the Ophthalmologist is capable of generating, ranges from a low of $304,300 to a high of $309,000. A much more useful range when having salary conversations than the $100,000 difference identified above.