So let's talk for a few minutes about two physician payment models that you see come up from time to time. First, episode based payments. And then second, we'll talk about salaries. First, episode based payments. It's possible to conceptualize fee for service and capitation payments as two ends of a spectrum. One end, with fee for service, physicians are paid on the basis of services they perform. If they do more, they get paid more. On the other, the opposite. With capitation, payment per person per unit time, they get a single payment that is not a function of the number of services performed. In between those two points are other models. We'll take the example of episode payment to illustrate an intermediate arrangement. Here, payment is per episode of care. To use this model, we first have to define an episode. Episodes have two components normally. One, what some people have referred to as a clinical dimension, is the set of services or the medical conditions to be included. And number two, we have what you might call a time dimension that defines the beginning and the end of the episode. For example, one might define an episode of care related to a pregnancy to include prenatal care, the delivery of the baby, and relevant post delivery care. And the time period would run from the initiation of care for the pregnancy to some define time point after the delivery. Then, we can set up a system that pays physicians a single amount for the episode. The key would be that the payment is predefined for a given type of episode, and doesn't vary with the specific services provided to the patient within the episode. When a physician provides obstetric care for a pregnant patient under an episode model, for example, she might be paid the episode amount, to make up a number, like $5,000. Then, the provider can provide whatever services she determines are necessary for the patient during the episode, but more services would not generate more payment. Whatever is needed is supposed to be included in the episode payment. It's a little like capitation that way. No more payment for doing more services. But it's not all the way to capitation, since the payment is for one defined episode only. In that way, payment to the physician does vary with the number of patients treated, which is partly how things work in fee for service. These are somewhat less common models than fee for service or other capitation models. But you'll still find intermediate models used from time to time in different circumstances. And, in fact, lately there's been some increased attention to models like this and variants of it, often under the name, bundled payments. Our second topic here is the salary model. This is not that difficult to deal with, since it's basically the same model that's used for many jobs around the world. You'll probably have encountered it pretty frequently. Some organizations, particularly larger physician practices, pay physicians a salary, a fixed amount for working for some period of time, like a month or a year. And carrying out agreed upon duties during that time period. A physician might be paid X dollars per month, or X dollars per year for participating in the work of the practice, seeing patients, and doing other things. So, in addition to fee for service and capitation, you can keep your eye out for other kinds of models that exist including episodes and salaries.