Surgeon productivity

It is that time of year to start thinking about productivity.
We are wanting to count the number of surgery cases instead of RVU's for our surgery department "report card".

Can anyone explain the standard for defining a case?

I am thinking a case is counted as a patient encounter on one day.

So if the patient has 3 procedures on one day that is counted as one case.

If the same patient returns 3 days later and has another procedure that is another case.

Thank You
Louise

not sure of your intentions

Your dermatologist cuts off 30 moles in a day and gets 30 case points. Your CV surgeon does one major CABG with double valve on a 90 year old and is in the OR 12 hours and gets 1 case point. Doesn't sound like a good way to determine productivity.

Surgery productivity

Why don't you want to use RVUs?

Here are the issues I see.

A major or minor procedure, performed alone is a case.

How do you handle second and subsequent procedures on the same day: additional cases or not? Will it matter to you if they are bundled or not? What about assistant surgeries?

I think signaturedoc asks the important question: what are you trying to measure?

not sure of your intentions

Both of your examples would get one case. We are currently counting one case per patient, regardless of how many procedures were done, per day.

We are trying to find a fair way to use physician productivity for national comparison. The RVU's for a pediatric surgeon nationally are way way over what our surgeons are producing so we are wanting to look at the "case" count because we are more in line with that comp.

Thank You
Louise

I should clarify

my dermatologist saw 30 different patients with one mole each.

Stick to RVU's- your pediatric surgeon data should be reviewed.