Association Between Surgeons' Technical Efficiency and Hospital Revenue

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Medical Economics
• Surgical Outcomes Analysis

Background:

• Healthcare managers frequently use surgeon revenue to assess performance.
• A direct relationship between surgeon technical efficiency and hospital revenue requires empirical validation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between surgeons' technical efficiency and their generated revenue.
• To determine if surgeon revenue can serve as a proxy for technical efficiency in healthcare management.

Main Methods:

• Data envelopment analysis (DEA), specifically the Charnes-Cooper-Rhodes model, was used to calculate technical efficiency.
• Multiple regression analysis employing a Tobit model was conducted on surgical data from 222 surgeons.
• Data encompassed 17,227 surgical cases performed between April 2013 and September 2018 at University Hospital.

Main Results:

• Surgeon revenue demonstrated a statistically significant positive association with mean technical efficiency scores (P = .000).
• Surgical volume exhibited a statistically significant negative association with mean technical efficiency scores (P = .000).
• A 1% increase in revenue was linked to a 0.46%–0.52% increase in efficiency score, with other variables being insignificant.

Conclusions:

• Surgeon revenue is a significant positive predictor of technical efficiency.
• Surgeon revenue can effectively function as a proxy variable for technical efficiency in hospital performance evaluations.
• Findings support the use of revenue data in assessing surgeon performance metrics.