How Do You Measure Physician Productivity?

Physician productivity should be measured using clearly defined metrics that match the practice’s specialty, workflow and compensation or operational model.

Possible measures include:

• Completed visits
• New patient visits
• Follow-up visits
• Visits by appointment type
• Patient volume by reporting period
• Appointment utilization
• Work volume measures used by the practice
• Production or financial measures where appropriate

The key is to avoid treating one number as a complete picture of physician performance.

For example, visit volume alone may not explain differences in appointment types, specialty workflows or patient complexity.

A physician productivity report should therefore provide context, consistent definitions and an appropriate reporting period.

When building a provider productivity dashboard, practices should define the exact calculation for every metric before comparing providers or months.