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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
Intriguing trends showed up in this year's compensation report — an improvement in gender-based pay disparity among doctors in primary care; a growing disillusionment with Medicare payments, as more physicians decline to take new patients on Medicare; and a general increase in physician pay. More than 10,000 physicians in over 29 specialties told us how much they earn, how hard they work, and how they feel about their income.
(In this report, gender is based on how physicians self-identified in our survey.)
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
Physician compensation is still on the rise. Five years ago, our 2018 report showed overall physician compensation at $299,000, compared with $352,000 in this year's report. "We expect physician income to continue increasing, as everyone talks about a physician shortage, which the pandemic has exacerbated," says Mike Belkin, JD, divisional vice president at Merritt Hawkins, a physician recruitment firm. "We see more physicians burned out, retiring, reducing their hours, or looking for shift work or virtual care, which further reduces the physician workforce."
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
The top-earning specialties are virtually unchanged in the past 10 years, with the exception of plastic surgery, which began its rise toward the top around 2017.
For employed physicians, compensation figures include salary, bonus, and profit-sharing contributions. For self-employed physicians, they include earnings after taxes and deductible business expenses before income tax. Only full-time salaries were included in our results.
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
The biggest increases in compensation were seen in oncology, anesthesiology, gastroenterology, radiology, critical care, and urology. Specialties that are more involved with procedures are continuing to see more volume as the pandemic eased. Still, Medicare cuts and somewhat stagnant reimbursement relative to the cost of practice dragged down the income of many physicians.
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
Other reasons that physicians gave for a decrease in their income were:
"I had a pay cut in base salary."
"I did not make my bonus."
"Our practice was acquired by venture capital firms; they slashed costs."
"Decreasing Medicare reimbursement and poor payor mix destroy our income."
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
Physician compensation overall has steadily increased. "Supply and demand is the biggest driver," says Belkin. "Organizations understand it's not getting any easier to get good candidates, and so for the most part, physicians are getting good offers."
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
Many physicians say they work harder and longer in order to earn their incentive bonus; more than half (57%) of specialties said they get an incentive bonus. "We're not seeing many employers go to a flat fixed salary," says Belkin. "There can be different types of incentive plans, but we still see the incentive bonus as a pretty important piece to physicians."
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
There appears to be some progress in the pay gap between men and women primary care physicians (PCPs). For the prior few years, male PCPs earned about 25% more than female PCPs. This year, men earned 19% more than female — still a significant disparity, but the lowest gap in 5 years.
"Due to efforts by many, some institutions and healthcare organizations have reviewed their salary lines and recognized the discrepancies, not only between the sexes but also between those new hires, which can be offered significantly more than those more senior physicians who have been working there for years and hired under a different pay structure," says Theresa Rohr-Kirchgraber, MD, president of the American Medical Women's Association, and professor of medicine at AU/UGA Medical Partnership, Athens, Georgia. "Bringing transparency to salary lines helps to improve the pay disparity."
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
Male specialists earned 27% more than female specialists, a slight decline from 31% last year and from 33% the year before. "There are more women going to medical school, and more women before us who have become powerhouses in some of the male-dominated specialties," said Rohr-Kirchgraber. "When women see those role models, it's easier to imagine ourselves in those positions and those specialties."
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
Caucasian/White physicians ($358,000) and Asian American physicians ($351,000) make more in overall income than do African American/Black physicians ($311,000).
Caucasian/White physicians are more likely to be male (64%) than are Asian American (58%) and African American (36%) physicians. Caucasian/White physicians are more likely to be age 45 years or older (74%) than are Asian American (60%) and African American (67%) physicians.
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
Overall, 52% of physicians are satisfied with their income, generally similar to 5 years ago, prior to COVID, when 55% of physicians said they felt fairly compensated. Some of the lower-paying specialties are among those who are satisfied with their income. "Often physicians with a high salary are part of a large organization, so there's probably some heartburn because they know what reimbursements are, but the organization takes a large part," says Belkin.
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
Four of this year's top-earning states were also on last year's list; Indiana, Connecticut, Missouri, and Florida. A study in Human Resources for Health notes that the five states expected to have the largest physician shortages by 2030 are California, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and Georgia. "In general, the West does pay a little higher than the Northeast," says Belkin. "Florida tends to pay high; it has a retired population with fairly decent Medicare reimbursement, so physicians there do well."
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
Many physicians take side gigs to give life to their talents or get emotional relief from work, but others do so in order to bring in more money.
Physicians commented:
"I had to work three jobs at once for fear of my clinic closing."
"If I did not have income from two other medical businesses where I am the medical director, I would have to close my 100-patient solo practice."
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
Competition appears to be heating up. Last year, 67% of physicians said they were not affected by competition from the above sources; only 63% say that now. Nonphysician competitors are the largest source of competition. Yet, one respondent said, "Most of our competition comes from other practices."
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
More physicians are feeling the pinch owing to reduced Medicare and Medicaid payments and are considering reducing their Medicare and Medicaid patient base. Five years ago, 71% of physicians said they would continue taking new Medicare patients, compared with 65% now — the lowest percentage we've seen in our compensation reports.
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
There are some slight increases in the percentage of women physicians in the higher-paying specialties. Urology increased from having 8% female physicians last year; plastic surgery increased from 16% last year. Still, primary care has the largest percentage of women physicians.
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
As an overall average, physicians work 50 hours per week, which includes time seeing patients and charting, paperwork, and administrative work. Five specialties say they work 55 hours per week or more. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 38.7 was the average number of hours worked per week in the US overall in 2021.
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
Despite problems with the insurers, reimbursement, frustrating patients, and other industry issues, most physicians would still choose medicine. Still, their ardor for the profession is lower than it was 5 years ago, when 77% said they'd choose medicine again.
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
In 10 specialties, 90% or more of their members would choose the same specialty, compared with eight specialties scoring that high last year. Some of the lower-earning specialties were less likely to have said they would stay in their same specialty if they had to do it over.
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
"Being really good at open vascular surgery. And we cannot get paid for it. I cannot believe how good I am at this and the country, industry, and government could care less."
"Bringing new life into this world and happiness to the family!"
"Collaborating with patients on their journey to health and maintaining wellness."
"Knowing that I am doing something most days that makes a difference in lives of others."
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
Challenges are abundant. Whereas many physicians feel that these issues are manageable and deal with the difficulties, others make the decision to stop being a practicing physician. In 2021, 117,000 physicians left the workforce owing to retirement, burnout, and stressors related to COVID.
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
Self-employed physicians earn more than employed physicians overall. Some factors contributing to this are that, on average, more self-employed physicians are older and more are male. However, the number of self-employed physicians is dwindling. A 2022 study showed that 74% of physicians are employed; 52.1% of them are employed by a hospital or health system.
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
Paperwork and administrative chores are continuing to creep up and drain time from a physician's day. Studies have shown that charting into an electronic health record (EHR) system can add up to 1.5 hours per day, beyond the physician's regular workday. Overall, physicians spend 15.5 hours per week on paperwork and administration. Of that, 9 hours are on EHR documentation.
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
There's been a steady although slow decline in fee-for-service, which has been a stated goal for a long time. According to the APM Measurement Effort, most recently, 59.5% of healthcare payments from insurers were tied to value and quality, whereas 40.5% of payments came from fee-for-service models.
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
Some physicians commented:
"I continue to treat them. My hospital employer handles the billing."
"We send bills to collection agencies but continue to treat the patient."
"Our practice requires payment in advance or a credit card on file which we bill, so we don't have a large problem with nonpayment."
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
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Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2023: Your Income vs Your Peers'
Leslie Kane, MA | April 14, 2023 | Contributor Information
'I Cry but No One Cares': Medscape Physician Burnout & Depression Report 2023
Burnout is up and is harming physicians' health and relationships. More than 9100 physicians told us what's causing their burnout and depression, how it affects them, and what they're doing about it. Medscape Features Slideshows, Jan 2023
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Comments on Medscape are moderated and should be professional in tone and on topic. You must declare any conflicts of interest related to your comments and responses. Please see our Commenting Guide for further information. We reserve the right to remove posts at our sole discretion.
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Leslie Kane, MA
Executive Director, Medscape Business of Medicine
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