Increasing surgeon productivity: the effect of the addition of musculoskeletal physicians to an orthopedic surgery department.

The orthopedic surgery department at Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida, sought to improve the productivity of individual surgeons while maintaining quality of patient care as well as patient and physician satisfaction by expanding the department to include dedicated nonoperative musculoskeletal physicians who would evaluate patients and refer those requiring surgical care to surgeons within the department. With the addition of two such physicians, the yield of surgical patients by orthopedic surgeons increased by 20%, and the direct margin of the department increased by 19%. Moreover, referring physicians and patients were very satisfied with the care provided by the musculoskeletal physicians.