Because many prestigious medical centers have all their medical staff on a salary, they contend that their physicians and surgeons therefore have no incentive to upcode or perform unneeded tests and procedures. But many of the well-known health systems (including the Harvard-affiliated Partners HealthCare, the Henry Ford Health System, Duke Health, and Baylor Scott & White Health) tie those salaries to physicians’ RVUs or sometimes offer “productivity bonuses” based on them. A small number even deduct money from a doctor’s salary if his or her RVUs are too low. In 2015, 71 percent of physician
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