MGMA: Medical Director Duties, Compensation Vary Widely

The top three medical director duties listed by survey respondents were monitoring quality, developing policies and procedures, and attending meetings, Todd Evenson, assistant director of surveys at MGMA, explained in an interview.

The survey doesn't identify by specialty the compensation received for particular duties or responsibilities. It does provide duty and responsibility information in large physician categories: primary care, surgical specialists, and nonsurgical specialists. Here are some examples:

Meeting Responsibilities. Attending meetings increased compensation for nonsurgical specialist by 8.6% versus medical directors in that category without that responsibility — $43,421 annually compared with $40,001.

Documentation and care planning. Surgical specialist without this responsibility made 26.5% more than their counterparts with this duty. But primary care medical directors without documentation and care planning duties earned 6.3% less than their counterparts.