Academic Performance-Based Compensation Models.

Academic radiologists spend considerable amounts of time and effort providing nonclinical value-added services in the realms of teaching, research, and administration that are not reimbursable through traditional relative value units (RVUs) under the resource-based relative value scale. Numerous systems of academic RVUs have been proposed by medicine, surgery, and radiology programs to measure and reward these nonclinical contributions. In this article the authors (1) describe the traditional clinical RVU model of reimbursement; (2) review attempts to develop academic compensation models targeted toward research, teaching, and administration; and (3) describe possible models for academic productivity compensation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]