Q.17
Physician Echo Lab Staffing:
Using the chart below, indicate how many echocardiography physicians are assigned in your lab to cover each modality. The total number of physician FTEs per day should equal the total obtained by adding the TTE, fetal, TEE, and teaching/conference numbers together. Report numbers to the nearest 0.2 of an FTE (i.e., 1.2, 2, 3.4, etc).
To calculate physician FTEs, Echo MD FTE calculator.
Examples:
- If you had 2 TTE physicians 3 full days a week (2 x 0.2 x 3) and 3 TTE physicians 2 full days a week (3 x 0.2 x 2), your TTE FTEs would be 2.4 (1.2 + 1.2).
- If you provided fetal echo coverage by one physician 3 full days a week, your fetal FTE response would be 0.6.
- If one physician covers TTE and TEE equally in a day, a daily estimated FTE of 0.5 for each service should be assigned to that physician. The daily estimates should be average over a week’s time, so that a TEE physician with a 0.5 daily FTE 4 times a week would be assigned an estimated daily TEE FTE value of 0.4 (0.5 x 4 divided by 5).
- If one physician has dedicated time to prepare conference for ½ day per week, and one physician has dedicated teaching time each morning, 5 days a week, the total teaching/conference FTEs would represent 0.6 (0.1 +0.5).
- If your lab coverage usually averaged 2.4 TTE physicians, 0.6 fetal physicians, and 0.8 TEE physicians, your total number of physician FTEs would be 3.8.