E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSBy Sarah Barr
Kaiser Health News
Few doctors think of themselves as rich, and only about half think they’re fairly compensated, according to survey results released this week by Medscape.
The annual survey isn’t scientific – and perhaps, not surprising, either — but it offers insights into what nearly 25,000 physicians earn, and how they view that number. In 2011, compensation self-reported by surveyed physicians ranged from an average of $156,000 for pediatricians to $315,000 for radiologists and orthopedic surgeons.
The survey showed that 51 percent of all physicians — and 46 percent of primary care physicians – think they’re compensated fairly.
Only about 11 percent of doctors consider themselves rich, mostly because of their debts and expenses, according to Medscape.
The survey also offers a glimpse at how physicians view coming changes to the health care system, such as efforts to improve quality or offer care through accountable care organizations, which are integrated systems included in the federal health law.
More than half said they expect their incomes to decline because of ACOs (although very few were participating in such a system), and only 25 percent said quality measures and treatment guidelines will improve patient care.
Overall, 54 percent of physicians said they would choose medicine as a career again. Only 41 percent said they would choose the same specialty and 23 percent would choose the same practice setting.
Others groups that survey physicians about their income include the Medical Group Management Association and Merritt Hawkins. A 2011 MGMA report, for instance, which looked at data from 2010, found the median compensation for radiologists was $471,253 and $192,148 for physicians in pediatric/adolescent medicine.
Medscape surveyed 24,216 physicians across 25 specialty areas from Feb. 1-17, 2012 using a third-party online survey collection website.
Physician compensation in 2011:
Pediatrics -- $156,000
Psychiatry -- $170,000
Obstetrics/Gynecology -- $220,000
General surgery -- $265,000
Plastic surgery -- $270,000
Cardiology -- $314,000
Orthopedics -- $315,000
Radiology -- $315,000
For complete chart: http://capsules.kaiserhealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/doc-salaries-500.png
This story was produced in collaboration with Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization which is unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente
Related:
Survey: Young docs see gloomy future
Video: Brain dead mom gives birth to twins a month later
1 in 4 Americans without health coverage, study finds
Video: Doctors say adults need vaccines, too
Leave a Comment:
I'm surprise; doctor earn less than those clowns they call movie stars, politicians, athletes, news anchors; the list goes on..............stock broker; etc.............
We valve our lives so little...................
The tub is upside down! Clowns do better than Doctors and Engineers
So according to these numbers the average of these positions is $253,125.00 I wonder what the average Nurses salary is. You know the ones who actually do the work.
Nurses are doing cardiac bypasses? Isn't that illegal?
The nurses who chose not to, or who weren't qualified to go to medical school? Those nurses?
Funny how Radiology is the highest paid, yet they spend the least amount of time dealing with a patient!
I'm going to say the same thing to you as I said to another poster with this question.
Also, it's a very competitive residency to get into. Tt may come as a surprise to some, but to the average board scores to even be considered for a radiology residency are amongst the highest of all specialties, the average Step I USMLE Score for those that matched to radiology residency is a 238 (the highest you can score Step I is 260). The DO rads residencies won't take someone with less than a 650 on the COMLEX (the top score on the COMLEX is 800). A radiologist needs to be well versed in a wide variety of pathology, and there is a lot of subtly in the various images. Also, their correct interpretations of the images makes a huge impact on how the patient is treated. Clinicians take the radiologists interpretations and pair that with the clinical presentations to help decide what is the proper treatment for whatever issue you have.
OMFG, so tired of rich people crying. My family of 4 lives on less than 20,000 a year. 300,000 sounds more than fair for any job, quit whining and get on with it.
If 20K/year is your return on $0.00 invested in your education, then you're actually the one doing unfairly well.
I think some Doctors are rich but I think the majority of them are well paid unlike Teachers who are not well paid and who do not get the respect they deserve.
Doctors can't be paid enough for what they do. "We're trusting you with our lives. Here's your mountain of med school debt to show for all the important work you do."
They're just people dude.
If only the amount of debt was positively correlated to their diagnostic skill.
OK, I'm teasing, but really ... they are not gods
They may not think they are rich, but hey, they think they are gods. Don't believe me, try not agreeing with one sometime.
This is the msnbc/ Obama network stirring up class warfare.
G.D. Obama and libtards stirring up class warfare! They should leave the Southern plantation owners alone. They work hard; its hard cracking whips on slaves. (Oops its the foreman who do the actual whip cracking)
Oh sorry, wrong century, wrong President. I was thinking of Lincoln.
How about comparing their pay to those of others in the "helping" professions. You know, paramedics, who can kill you make about $29,000. Professors, who usually have $100,000 or more in students loans, can blow you up. I have two friends who graduated from NIT and the University of Chicago with PhDs in Chemistry and Physics. Both were highly disappointed in their $40,000 per year Ivy league job offers from schools that were in Manhattan. And yes, PhD students do have to serve assistantships, etc. What do K-12 teachers make? In some states they have to have at least master's degrees to get a job or to keep their jobs. Doctors do not have to go into private practice. That's a choice. I say we pay for their educations and their malpractice insurance, as long as they are not found guilty of malpractice more than twice, and then we return medicine back to the non-greedy helping profession that it was before employers began offering health insurance. You know, that communistic-type business of having some people pay for others. (Doctors used to work for a sack of potatoes.) I'm not saying that they should work for that, but their pay and attitudes are way out of hand. They are no better than lawyers What doctors need to understand is this: Employers will stop offering health insurance, and when that happens from where will your patients come? The market will level the playing field.
brenda
none of the other professions you mention require the training, work, and strenous hours post training that medicine does
Its not a fair comparison
Ok eric, but let's just say the pay scale is not linear. The amount of education doesn't mean they make more than others with bachelor degrees, yet you're arguing for more $$ with more education.
Also, there are many people who work 80 hours a week who will never earn big $$$. So if I can choose between 8 years of school and 4 years residency, then get out and make a net of say 100k... or I can choose to work 80 hours at 12 years, and never see improvement in SES, then what do I choose?
There's a lot of studies that show a correlation between intellectual development and poverty, so everyone can't make that choice... we all don't have the same opportunities. Just count yourself lucky! You had the brains, the opportunity and a little bit of luck.
(Turkenheimer et al., 2003)
Oh, I'm going to a party this weekend to congratulate my daughters boyfriend on graduating from army basic. I'm ashamed and embarrassed, but I can't afford to buy the kid a gift to take to his parent's second house in honor of his accomplishment. In fact, when my daughter completed her own basic training, I couldn't afford to buy her something either. I'm getting ready to file bankruptcy, mainly for unpaid medical bills from last year.
$176,000 isn't rich. When I was four, my parents borrowed $200 from my grandparents. I told my sitter, excitedly, that we were gonig to be rich. At that time, she informed me that you've got to have a million bucks to be rich. OK. But when you make $18,000 a year (the last time I worked outside the home), you will say that someone who makes $87,000 a year (what my husband earned last year) is certainly rich. So, I will say that someone who makes $176,000 a year is not rich. BUT. I cannot afford to make repairs on my car, pay my kids allowances, or visit my family only 20 minutes away, while the doctor is having a party.
OF COURSE doctors are not rich -- rich people have butlers, chauffeurs, and other servants. Doctors are upper-middle class.
How can someone who earns only four or five times what an ordinary person earns be considered rich? If that were true, then all it would take is four or five ordinary blokes to put together a fortune -- and we KNOW that's not true!
I am very skeptical of the figures cited in this article. Twenty years ago, before medical fees exploded, I worked for a very high-end real estate company in a small city and sold homes to doctors. Of course, I was required to take financial information to accompany all real estate offers. Just one example: At that time, a physician having his own private practice in OB/GYN dropped the OB portion due to rising malpractice insurance. He was left working 3 1/2 days a week, and his income was nearly $400K. Those were the days when a combined office visit and blood work cost around $60 (as opposed to the current $500 where I reside). Today many doctors are still compensated by pharmaceutical companies in addition to their salaries and they own a part of the for-profit hospitals and health clinics. I personally knew someone in sports medicine who, in his early 30's, lost more than a million in investments and was still doing OK. I would guess that a million or dollars a year so would be a conservative figures for most doctors.
False. Please provide source
And your guess would be wrong. Take it from the multiple docs on this forum (including this one)
I have a very ill husband with over $1,000,000 in bills and I have worked in medical insurance for over 40 years so I approach this from many levels. First looking at averages is very deceiving. Rural individual practice doctors income can not be compared to the high tech physicians working in huge metro medical centers. Most doctors (because they are affiliated with a practice) do not pay their own malpractice insurance from their "income". It is paid by the corporation. Yes, if they are a partner, at the end of the year it affects their share of the profits, but does not come from what is being reported as their income.
Also, I am tired of hearing about their student loans. Regardless of your degree, if you take student loans, you know they need to be paid back. Millions never get paid back. Student loans have nothing to do with salary levels.
I have never met a doctor on welfare or homeless. They are earning a good living, many have "office hours" and do not get the middle of the night calls. They choose their profession and in my opinion they are paid well for what they do.
It's too bad most doctors today are in it for the money, not for the love of medicine or to do good. My husband has one doctor who is in it for all the right reasons and believe me you can tell all the difference between him and the others. He cares deeply about his patients and he is the only doctor who has ever said to me "if a doctor can't make a living on Medicare reimbursements, he should be in another business".
Bj.. For the avg medicare patient I see, most of whom can't even afford their copay, I am reimbursed ~ $53 for 1 hr (not 15 min) of work. The patients I work with require an hour and sometimes more of work. Out of that I have to pay office overhead, taxes, malpractice, etc. I pay ALL of my own expenses because I am a private practitioner. Add in student loans and there is not much left.
So yes I can make a living off of that but far from the "rich" living that many seem to think. I could drop those patients and make much more but I don't because I am not in it for the money. However, I also must pay my bills so if the reimbursement rates keep dropping I'll be unable to continue to see medicare/medicaid patients. That means that they get stuck going to a public health clinic and get to see someone for 10 min who has about 5 yrs less education/training.
Doctors have never been the problem. To see that an insurance executive is being paid over 100 times the average salary of doctors is sad.
I have never know a doctor who went through all the years of training and schooling that it takes to be a docotor for the money.
My doctor had to stop taking Medicare patients to stay in business. What's wrong with that picture ?
Exactly. People on this board are attacking the wrong problem, mostly because they either need someone to blame for their own financial situation or they are being bitter about people who do better than they do, regardless of the amount of study and work involved.
The real problem is the insurance companies. The reason why your general physician can only spend 15 minutes with you is because they are pressured to see more and more patients every day. I feel bad for doctors in NYC - it is unreal how many appointments they have to service and they know there is no way they can provide the bedside manner they want to with that kind of pressure.
As an OB nurse married to an OB/Gyn for many years, I can tell you that the life is less than glamorous. The hours are brutal and the phone rings constantly. Our total income is less than what it was 10 years ago - I make more, but he makes less. Reimbursements are decreased, but the cost of practicing medicine is more. Big deductibles on insurance plans and a slow economy mean patients are delaying their surgeries and treatments. And to those people who think doctors are paid too much, I'll tell them: The majority of them earn every penny. Having said that though, the golden age of medicine and the glory days are over. Sad but true.
Do you find that more women treat their OBGYN's as general physicians to boot? I've been doing my annual physical at my OBGYN for years and now insurance says they can be treated the same. Just curious to see if more women do this and what impact it has on the doctor.
Sure, lots of young and otherwise healthy young women have opted to use their OB/Gyn as their primary care doc, but insurance is mandating that to change. Many plans - Tricare comes to mind - consider obstetrics and gynecology a specialty and require a referral from a primary care/family medicine type doc before they will approve and reimburse the visit.
Also, slowly coming to an end, are the days when you could ask your OB/Gyn for some random prescription. We're all under the microscope.
The nursing profession is also screwed down tight these days too with safety initiatives and all the minutia that creates. The theory is excellent, the execution is absurd. In my humble opinion :)
Interesting, thanks for the answer! BC/BS does not require a referral for an OBGYN - yet. But, it's good to know others are starting to do so!
Like alot of others, sure, I'd love to make the money doctors make, but consider this: Would you go to school for as long as they did, do an internship (for free) for as long as they did, and ESPECIALLY --- would you want a job where being wrong, even every now and then, is NOT an option? Wouldn't the risk of someone's life ending over what YOU decided make you ask yourself if the money is worth it? Would you trade places with them???? REALLY?????
Are they rich? Financially, by some people's standards, maybe not; but when they graduate from medical school, the kind of money shown on the graph in the article is pretty much guaranteed as long as they "work" their profession. And just how many other people have that kind of "guaranteed" financial security?
Yes, there are some entrepreneurs who "strike gold" but many more of them don't. The fact that doctors are highly respected members of the community and also doing what they have freely chosen and love to do while at the same time have such lead pipe security absolutely qualifies them as some of the most fortunate people in the country!
So, doctors, count your blessings and don't look over your shoulders!
"last time I checked, malpractice insurance is completely deductible
....nice try for sympathy, though"
Wow so I have to pay $50,000 in malpractice insurance but I get to deduct it.
THANKS
Funny that if educational costs for doctors are so high and a justification for their high pay, that there isn't a bigger push to defray the costs of medical education and break the cycle.
Seems the only people who make money are the people who already have the money and loan it out to the people who actually produce.
I don't think the cost of medical education is what justifies the high pay. I finished Med School with a little over $100K in debt, but was able to pay this off within several years of finishing residency.
The high pay is only part of what draws the best and brightest minds to make the many years of sacrifices to get into the career. But I was told on my first day of Med School that if you just want to get rich, you've come to the wrong place - you can get an MBA and work on Wall Street and make considerably more money. Even with the (relatively) high pay, one has to be devoted to being a healer in order to do this.
When I go see a doctor, I like one who is making lots of money. The current direction we are going with ObamaCare, you will have nurses diagnosing and treating diseases.
The Money that Doctors should be getting and should be going into Direct Health Care is going into the pockets of the CEOs at Health Insurance Companies. Shut down all the insurance Companies and make them get real jobs. There are too many people taking a slice of the Health Care Pie that do not belong there.
Get the people out of Healing that do not provide direct health care and you will fix the business of Healing
Most of the doctors who are stupid cannot admit that either. I have seen it proven over and over and over, in today's world, money and intellect have no connection.
The Money that Doctors should be getting and should be going into Direct Health Care is going into the pockets of the CEOs at Health Insurance Companies. Shut down all the insurance Companies and make them get real jobs. There are too many people taking a slice of the Health Care Pie that do not belong there. Get the people out of Healing that do not provide direct health care and you will fix the business of Healing
Can't both be true? Doctors are important AND they are well-paid?
I have a surgeon in my family....early 40's, living in a gorgeous home, wife stays home, three kids in school. Nice vehicles and plenty of family vacations. Compared to my husband and I who both work your average full-time jobs, live in an ok house and drive 10 year old vehicles, yeah they are rich.