Improving group practice performance with benchmarking.

Group practices can use benchmarking to improve physician productivity to best-practice levels. The benchmarking process can be broken down into two phases. In the first phase, the problem is identified. This phase involves identifying critical drivers, choosing an external benchmark, gathering internal data, identifying variances, and establishing targets. In the second phase, action is taken. This phase involves identifying actions to take, defining responsibilities, implementing the changes, and monitoring performance. Group practices that use benchmarking need to understand the tool's limitations. Benchmarks serve as roadmaps, but any action plan should be tailored to the practice and take a variety of factors into consideration.