8 ways to build a hybrid physician compensation model

Hiring a physician now takes many practices a year or more, and the math is only getting more difficult: The Association of American Medical Colleges projects a shortfall of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036. In that market, the compensation plan that brought your doctors in the door a few years ago can quietly become the reason they take the next call from a recruiter.

Pay has stopped being a once-a-year afterthought. Survey after survey finds most physicians feel overworked, a meaningful share are weighing early retirement or a new employer, and a majority say their compensation does not reflect the expertise their work demands. The two old extremes, a flat salary on one end and pure eat-what-you-treat productivity on the other, increasingly struggle to answer those concerns on their own.

That is why hybrid models have become the default, and why physician compensation consultant Jessica Minesinger built a 2026 MGMA Summit session around them. MGMA's provider compensation data show pure salary-and-productivity plans falling to less than one in four of all methods reported by 2024 as more groups fold in quality and other measures. A strong hybrid plan blends a benchmarked base with productivity, quality and other incentives, and it gives leaders room to meet physicians where they actually are. Here are eight places to start.