In fairness, it's the Mayo Clinic's enormous prestige that acts as a supplemental non-cash reimbursement to the physicians that practice there. It's, more gener

In fairness, it's the Mayo Clinic's enormous prestige that acts as a supplemental non-cash reimbursement to the physicians that practice there. It's, more generally, a trait of hospital systems to substitute reimbursing physicians with culture rather than cash. They get a flat salary, and in some places a volume-based bonus. In places where the culture isn't earnest, insufficiently prestigious, or both, this cultural currency falls flat and physicians (and other staff) absolutely start to suck more. Outside of hospitals (hospitals and physicians are not equivalent; think Walmart and your local mom-and-pop shop, if you want a better idea of the relationship between the two), physicians are reimbursed directly by volume. Not quality, though - just volume.