The effect of federal funding on clinical productivity: the price of academics.

Background: Research is time consuming and expensive. To offset this expense, federal agencies fund the research, but the financial impact of funded research on clinical surgical productivity has not been studied. The objective is to determine departmental impact of federal funding. Methods: The relative value units, professional revenue, and funding were evaluated for clinical Faculty in the Surgery Department for fiscal year 2008. Means were compared using t test, and significance was defined as p < 0.05. Results: The Department had 61 clinical surgeons. The Department was divided into three groups based on research funding: unfunded, industry funded, and federally funded. Surgeons with both federal funding and other funding were only included in the federally funded group. There were 42 unfunded, 8 industry funded, and 11 federally funded surgeons. The relative value units, professional revenue, and salary with benefits of the three groups were compared. Conclusions: Federal funding is associated with a significant reduction in clinical work and clinical reimbursement. Federally funded research results in a net loss of revenue for the Surgery Department. The net effect is that the Surgery Department sponsors Federal Research and this has not been previously reported in the literature.