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Chonal Atresia

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Anybody know what the going rate is for reading sleep studies as a contracted physician? Can it be set up as a fee per study read? I am an active duty otolaryngologist who recently passed my sleep boards. I have been approached by a sleep center in town to read studies as a moonlighting job. I was curious to know a general starting point for salary in negotiations with the sleep center. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
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$100 to $220 per study. There is a pretty wide range. A lot depends on the speed of the system you are using to read the study, if you are reading remotely or at the site, if you are providing any other services to the sleep lab

If you or your staff are actually typing up the physician interpretation, I would aim for at least $135
 
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"$100 to $220 per study." Is it just me, or does that sound under compensated? I thought it would be much more. Depending on insurance, costs, etc. I was made to believe sleep physicians working in a lab would closer to $500-$1000 per overnight patient. Any thoughts?
 
Meningism said:
"$100 to $220 per study." Is it just me, or does that sound under compensated? I thought it would be much more. Depending on insurance, costs, etc. I was made to believe sleep physicians working in a lab would closer to $500-$1000 per overnight patient. Any thoughts?
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That's (100-220) the typical payment to the physician from the sleep lab for reading a sleep study on a contracted basis. This amount of $ comes out of the typical $1000 the sleep lab receives, when billing the sleep study on a global basis (not separating out the professional and technical components).
 
As a RPSGT, I score sleep studies on a contract basis for about $120 a sleep study. I can probably score about 10 in a 5 hour period depending on artifact, length of study and software the study was captured on.

As a MD/DO in sleep, I would assume you mean that you are going to be looking over scored studies and recommending/ordering therapy? I can't see this being a real big money maker unless you have scorers under you and contract to multiple labs.

Very interested to see more information on this. I am also a RRT, and being so I plan on becoming a Pulm doc as well as a sleep doc. I know my medical directors can go through about 20 studies in a night (or a whole weeks worth). But he doesn't score at all. It's very rare he has to make corrections to a scored study, and when he does, it does take significant time away from his night.


***just noticed I revived an old post, sorry guys***
 
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100-220 is about right for an in house.

I have a question about home studies. What are people getting paid. I am considering a contract for home studies so I am wondering what my pay scale should be.

Dr. Rack or anyone else have any insight?
 
Manicsleep said:
. . .
I have a question about home studies. What are people getting paid. I am considering a contract for home studies so I am wondering what my pay scale should be.

Dr. Rack or anyone else have any insight?
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Well, I can tell you that our lab is getting paid cr@p from insurers . . . about $200 per study. That's total payment for the study, not just the technical or professional fee . . .
 
neurologist said:
Well, I can tell you that our lab is getting paid cr@p from insurers . . . about $200 per study. That's total payment for the study, not just the technical or professional fee . . .
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Why is this? Even with the medicare cuts, we are still pulling in about $900 a study. I think it was a 4% decrease? Not entirely sure on that. Maybe 8%. I think the money is in pediatric sleep labs though. We can't run split nights due to guidelines, and get pretty good returns. Having to keep up with pt's as they grow also keeps our lab really busy. We have about a 5 month wait list. I run all of the ventilator titrations, and those are getting processed at the same rate as C/BiPAP. I think it used to be we would get more for a vent titration.

How are you paying your techs? I wouldn't work anywhere for less than $25 an hour doing sleep as a RT. Maybe $20 as a RPSGT. Is your lab accredited by AASM? Do you have a RPSGT on staff every day? I know this can affect returns as well.
 
From what I have seen, techs who are reimbursed on an individual basis for each study typically are paid about $60. However, you obviously have more experience in this area than I do.

A signature from an MD/DO is needed on each study to bill insurance (a few insureres will still accept the signature of a phD with the old sleep boards). The doc's signature is necessary whether the study is billed globally or wether the lab bills the technical component and the doc bills the professional component.

rrt said:
As a RPSGT, I score sleep studies on a contract basis for about $120 a sleep study. I can probably score about 10 in a 5 hour period depending on artifact, length of study and software the study was captured on.

As a MD/DO in sleep, I would assume you mean that you are going to be looking over scored studies and recommending/ordering therapy? I can't see this being a real big money maker unless you have scorers under you and contract to multiple labs.

Very interested to see more information on this. I am also a RRT, and being so I plan on becoming a Pulm doc as well as a sleep doc. I know my medical directors can go through about 20 studies in a night (or a whole weeks worth). But he doesn't score at all. It's very rare he has to make corrections to a scored study, and when he does, it does take significant time away from his night.


***just noticed I revived an old post, sorry guys***
Click to expand...
 
rrt said:
Why is this? Even with the medicare cuts, we are still pulling in about $900 a study. I think it was a 4% decrease? Not entirely sure on that. Maybe 8%. I think the money is in pediatric sleep labs though. We can't run split nights due to guidelines, and get pretty good returns. Having to keep up with pt's as they grow also keeps our lab really busy. We have about a 5 month wait list. I run all of the ventilator titrations, and those are getting processed at the same rate as C/BiPAP. I think it used to be we would get more for a vent titration.

How are you paying your techs? I wouldn't work anywhere for less than $25 an hour doing sleep as a RT. Maybe $20 as a RPSGT. Is your lab accredited by AASM? Do you have a RPSGT on staff every day? I know this can affect returns as well.
Click to expand...

Huh? I think the post I responded to was asking about limited channel, unattended home studies, which reimburse very little. I can't imagine you're getting $900 a pop for those. What kind of studies are you talking about?
 
neurologist said:
Huh? I think the post I responded to was asking about limited channel, unattended home studies, which reimburse very little. I can't imagine you're getting $900 a pop for those. What kind of studies are you talking about?
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Ah, No I am talking about full night in lab psg and/or titration. That is also the amount we usually average from insurance payment. Some of the adult labs I worked at would routinely have patients pay the remainder of their deductibles ($300-600) out of pockets.
 
michaelrack said:
From what I have seen, techs who are reimbursed on an individual basis for each study typically are paid about $60. However, you obviously have more experience in this area than I do.

A signature from an MD/DO is needed on each study to bill insurance (a few insureres will still accept the signature of a phD with the old sleep boards). The doc's signature is necessary whether the study is billed globally or wether the lab bills the technical component and the doc bills the professional component.
Click to expand...

I would agree if we are talking strictly adults, I started scoring adult studies for lower than $60. $45 a pop. But it literally takes 20-25 min MAX to score an adult study. I wouldn't touch a pediatric study, let alone one on a special needs child (I score the majority of my studies for a lab that runs tons of studies on pts with seizures, or various disorders) for less than $100. Especially with children, I am always having to re-reference the leads to M1 or M2, troubleshoot missing leads and read through difficult studies due to these labs not entering rooms to fix problems if it will cause a patient to wake up and compromise the study.
 
Thanks for your input.
Think I am going to hold off on the home studies for now. I get paid a lot more as a psychiatrist although I think there are people reading 6-8 of those per hour to make it worthwhile but I think I am going to keep the door open and recruit a sleep psychiatrist in the future. Us psychiatrists have had it hard finding jobs in the pulm dominated market.
 
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