subpecialty doesn’t directly affect salary. However certain subspecialties tend to generate more RVUs through volume and procedures than others. An initial encounter may consume half or third of time in general neurology/neurophysiology than in behavioral neurology, yet the reimbursement is the same. In the same time it takes to do a thorough H&P on a demented pt, you can 2-3 pts with cc of headache/carpel tunnel/radicular back pain/etc. similarly, you could do 4-limb EMG with NCS in less time than assessing someone’s memory and cognition. I don’t know the numbers off the the top of my head, but you can generate at least double the number of RVUs, and hence money, doing the earlier. Therefore subspecialties like behavioral neuro and movement disorders, which tend to do lengthy H&P, tend to generate less money than others.
This concept is the same across all specialties of medicine. Regardless of procedures, a dermatologist who breezes through 50 pts in the same time it takes a rheumatologist to see 20 pts is going to generate 2-3x the income.