Hourly wages of physicians within medical fees based on the Korean relative value unit system

ABSTRACT

Background/Aims@#It is difficult to reach a social agreement on the appropriatelevel of compensation for professionals. This study was performed to examine thephysician fee embedded in the relative value unit (RVU) system in comparisonwith the Korean hourly minimum wage. @*Methods@#The Health Insurance Service Price and the Korean Classification ofProcedural Terminology were used to obtain the hourly wages of physicians fordesignated health care services. In addition, the physician fee schedule at theUnited States Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Organisationfor Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report on minimal wagewere used. Health care service fees were selected based on laboratory, pathology,imaging, and procedure codes as well as examination fees. For calculation of physicianlabor costs per hour, physician workload × conversion factor was divided bythe time involved. To calculate the proportion of physician labor fee in the totalfee, the physician workload RVU for each service fee was divided by the total RVU. @*Results@#A total of 27 physician fee codes were selected. Compared to the Koreanhourly minimum wage in 2015, the average physician wages were greater by 2.80-fold for primary care and by 3.05-fold for tertiary care. The mean proportion ofphysician labor cost in the total cost was 0.19, which was significantly lower thanthat of corresponding procedures in the United States RVU (mean, 0.48). @*Conclusions@#The average Korean physician wages compared to the hourly minimumwage were disproportionately low compared to the USA and other referenceOECD countries.