Agreed. Procedures are like products. From a hospital administrator's perspective, you should have a good idea of your cost of goods sold for standard procedure

Agreed. Procedures are like products. From a hospital administrator's perspective, you should have a good idea of your cost of goods sold for standard procedures. Lipid panel costs $X in materials (needles, vials, bandages), $Y in cost of the siemens equipment that does the test, $Z in labor cost to draw the blood, etc. If the administrator knows the COGS for each procedure, test, minute per consult per professional, etc. then quoting and billing should be much simpler than any type of hourly based quote work. The only time there would be a parallel would be if some doctor deliberated on a diagnosis for a long time. Most of the time though it's a quick collection of symptoms and then diagnosis or trial and error based on those symptoms. Maybe in some surgeries that have more complications than usual I could see a parallel to hourly work.