Healthcare's Senior Leadership Pay Continues to Rise

This article appears in the November 2012 issue of HealthLeaders magazine.

Across the C-suite, salaries and total cash compensation continue to rise, though changes to incentive structures may be influencing the size of the increase.

INTEGRATED Healthcare Strategies' 2012 National Healthcare Leadership Compensation Survey reports that though the use of annual incentives for executives remains very common, with approximately 80% of all hospitals and systems providing this type of plan for executives, the use of long-term incentives is slowly increasing, explains Kevin Talbot, executive vice president and practice leader at Integrated Healthcare Strategies.

He notes that an IHS study indicates from 2001 to 2011 hospitals and health systems began slowly adding more long-term incentives into the executive compensation model. IHS' data also indicates the most common performance category for annual incentives remains financial (generally, operating margin) though clinical quality and patient satisfaction are also in the incentive mix.