What is your hour worth?

Still spending hours on admin tasks that drain your time? You might be doing work that’s not worth your hourly rate. Figure out what your time is actually worth – so you can delegate smarter, save hours and focus on what matters most.

Do you know what you’re worth? That’s a heavy question – we’re not going that deep. But do you know what your hourly income is? 

Contrary to many other occupations, as physicians, we don’t often think about our income in terms of an hourly rate. Most of us are either salaried (with possible top-ups based on deliverables) or in a fee-for-service/private practice model. 

However, knowing this number can be extremely helpful to understand what your time is worth. Why? Knowing your average hourly income can help you figure out which tasks and services are worth your time to do, and which could be done in part or completely by someone else (or by some technology). 

Hourly rates for fee-for-service (or private practice) models

If you’re in private practice or a fee-for-service model, your actual hourly rate probably fluctuates day-to-day (possibly very widely depending on your type of practice). Regardless of the renumeration model, an easy way to get a rough estimate of your hourly rate is to simply Google “{insert your current yearly income} to hourly”. This is basic, but it’s a good starting point.

Now the fun begins. 

What to do with your hourly rate 

Take a good look at your hourly rate. First of all, be proud of it…you’ve earned it! 

“You can spend time, or you can spend money.”

The first time I heard this quote (on a YouTube video about gardening of all things), I didn’t recognize the profound effect it would have on my practice and life. As a physician, most of us are in or can be in a privileged position where we can leverage our income. 

Now, in the business world, some would say that any task you can pay someone else to do for less than your hourly income is worth offloading. Medicine doesn’t quite allow us to do that in the same way. There are just some things that we have to do (i.e. see the patients, do the biopsy, sign the insurance paperwork, etc.)…but that doesn’t mean the philosophy can’t apply.

In your practice, is there a way you can offload an entire task or at least part of it? Or is there a technology that costs less than your hourly rate but would save you more than an hour’s worth of work?

How I off-loaded prepping my consult notes  

Real life example: early in my practice, I had a regularly scheduled hot date with my EMR (EHR) on Sunday mornings (yes, fully aware this is a very questionable use of weekend hours).

I spent ~2 hours prepping all the notes for the coming week’s consultations. Basically, I reviewed my scheduled consults, selected the appropriate consult template for that reason for referral and entered the past medical history, medications and allergies to the note (which was typically included on most referrals). 

Did doing this save me time every day throughout the work week? Absolutely. After about 4 months, did I think there were innumerable better ways to spend that precious weekend time? Definitely. 

My regular Sunday slog was straightforward and did not require super specialized knowledge. I was just loading the template based on the problem in the referral and entering the provided information. 

This work needed to be done, but not necessarily by me. I could train someone else to do it. This was an ‘aha!’ moment.

I pitched the idea of hiring someone to prep our consult notes to my two partners, and they were in. We now collectively pay an employee one day a week and prep all the consults using our templates (with the past medical, medications, and allergies added) for the following week. 

This does cost us each a little money. But for less than a single hour of my hourly rate, I save 2+ hours per week. Huge win. It also makes each weekend feel longer and freer.

What part of your clinical workload can you offload?

This is just one way to leverage your hourly rate in your clinical workload. Maybe you spend time on the admin side of running your business – payroll, supply ordering, and employee training. You can use your hourly income to figure out if paying someone or for a piece of technology to get a task off your to-do list is worth it. 

Maybe you don’t need to or can’t offload the whole task (I still need to see the patients in consult and then finalize the note), but you can pay to have part of the task taken care of. 

What is your top priority?

By spending money (less than your hourly income!), you can buy time and have a shorter clinical day. Or you can work the same hours but do higher-yield activities, like seeing more consults or doing more procedures (which also might increase your hourly rate). Or maybe the mental space to dedicate more time to complicated cases with less stress about your to-do list would fill you up.  

Whatever your motivation, there is likely a way to leverage your income to get tasks off your to-do list. This is why knowing what your hour is worth is so important. 

What is your top priority? What is the barrier to making that happen?