Average Physician Compensation Jumps 3.1 Percent

Average Physician Compensation Jumps 3.1 PercentBut Salaries aren’t Thriving…

I was about 20 years old, working in the yard with my father one weekend, when I summoned up the nerve to ask him how much money he made as a physician. He candidly told me that he and his medical partner, my uncle, had “a pretty good” past year. After expenses, the two doctors had split about $210,000. That was 35 years ago.

Adjusted for inflation, dad would be earning over $305,000 today practicing internal medicine. That’s well ahead of the income for today’s “primary care doctors.”

According to results from the new 2016 American Medical Group Association Medical Group Compensation and Productivity Survey, while the financial story is mildly better for doctors in group medical practices today, when factoring in the expenses of life and business, incomes remain mostly stagnant.

Based on the analysis of 92,000 group doctors from 138 medical specialties, 74% of physician specialties realized compensation increases in 2015. The average pay increase for these doctors last year was 3.1% – similar to the 2.8% bump in 2014. But even in this age of relatively low inflation, those salary numbers aren’t thriving.

Summary findings include:

  • Primary care physicians saw an increase of 3.6% in annual compensation – up from a 0.3% increase in 2014.
  • Other medical specialties saw an average increase of 3% – very similar to the 3.2% increase in 2014.
  • Surgical specialties saw an average increase of 3.6% – up from a 2% increase in 2014.

The medical specialties that experienced the biggest increases in compensation in 2015 were Emergency Medicine (9.6%), Cardiac/Thoracic Surgery (8.1%), Cardiology (6.9%), and Hypertension and Nephrology (6.7%).

“Once again this year, we see that physician compensation in general has remained relatively flat, with an average increase around 3%,” said Donald W. Fisher, PhD, AMGA president and CEO. “We’ve seen peaks in certain specialties, and dips in others, and much of this reflects the cyclical nature of healthcare economics. However, with the movement to value-based incentives for care, the delivery model is changing to a more team-based approach. It will be interesting to watch compensation trends over the next few years as these value-based models become more prevalent.”

Here is the latest median annual compensation for various medical specialties, according to AMGA:

Family Medicine……………………………………$234,706
Internal Medicine………………………………$249,588
Pediatrics/Adolescent – General……………$235,257
Allergy/Immunology…………………………………$294,245
Cardiology – General………………………………$483,653
Cardiology – Cath Lab……………………………..$584,118
Dermatology…………………………………………$434,520
Endocrinology……………………………………….$242,202
Gastroenterology……………………………………$505,194
Hematology/Oncology………………………………$416,738
Hospitalist – IM………………………………………$275,363
Hypertension/Nephrology…………………………..$329,750
Infectious Disease………………………………….$261,630
Neurology…………………………………………….$284,751
Psychiatry……………………………………………..$254,942
Pulmonary Disease………………………………….$352,462
Rheumatologic Disease…………………………….$251,913
Urgent Care………………………………………….$264,197
Cardiac/Thoracic Surgery……………………………$645,112
Emergency Medicine………………………………..$355,180
General Surgery………………………………………$413,824
OB/GYN……………………………………………….$333,231
Ophthalmology……………………………………….$385,149
Orthopedic Surgery………………………………….$582,056
Otolaryngology……………………………………….$419,818
Urology……………………………………………….$441,836
Anesthesiology………………………………………$416,563
Diagnostic Radiology……………………………….$490,339

Some other pertinent points in the AMGA survey are:

  • As to ownership of the medical groups, 39% are owned by a health system, 31% by the doctors, and 17% by a hospital.
  • Regarding the legal makeup for the groups, 65% are not-for-profit corporations or foundations and 18% are professional corporations.
  • As to minimum number of hours per week a physician must work to be considered full-time, 69% are 36-40 hours and 26% are 31-35 hours.
  • When it comes to compensation measures on production-based plans for physicians, 79% use work RVUs and 26% use net collections.
  • As to other incentives and discretionary compensation measures, 71% use patient satisfaction, 49% use clinical outcomes, and 43% use individual financial goals.
  • Again, this year the southern region of the nation tends to have the highest compensation by specialty, the eastern region had the lowest compensation.

Source: Physician’s Money Digest