PhD/PsyD Starting Salary Neuropsychologist

[npsychi]

Hello all. What is generally the starting salary for clinical neuropsychologists entering their first position after postdoc? Any pay difference between adult and peds specialty? I am looking mostly for salary info in and around the Chicago area.

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[WisNeuro]

You can look up the starting salary for one in the VA there. It will be a rough approximation for starting salary in the area. Salaries will start to diverge at around 5-ish years post initial job. Division 40 also publishes salary surveys about every 5 years, also a good place to look, although contains outliers doing forensic work.

 

[rainedallnight]

Have a look at Jerry Sweet's neuropsychology salary survey (link here), which has more information than you could ever ask for -- including salary breakdowns by career stage, peds vs. adults, geographic region, practice setting, boarded vs. not, and on and on and on. This is from 2010, so add 5-8% to account for inflation since then. I believe a new one will be coming out in the next year or so. To your questions, median salary for the first few years in practice falls in the low 80K range. (So maybe mid-80K now, if you factor in inflation.) Peds makes somewhat less than adults, BUT this may be accounted for by the fact that peds specialists are more likely to work part-time and more likely to be women. Midwest and Illinois are slightly below the national median for income, but metro areas (like Chicago) are a bit above the national median.

There's also been a very interesting conversation on a couple listserves lately about how salary surveys completely ignore the effects of student debt repayment. This can obviously be *very* significant, especially if you have to pay your way through grad school without tuition waivers (i.e., many Psy.D. and some Ph.D. programs).

 

[npsychi]

You can look up the starting salary for one in the VA there. It will be a rough approximation for starting salary in the area. Salaries will start to diverge at around 5-ish years post initial job. Division 40 also publishes salary surveys about every 5 years, also a good place to look, although contains outliers doing forensic work.

Thanks very much

 

[npsychi]

Have a look at Jerry Sweet's neuropsychology salary survey (link here), which has more information than you could ever ask for -- including salary breakdowns by career stage, peds vs. adults, geographic region, practice setting, boarded vs. not, and on and on and on. This is from 2010, so add 5-8% to account for inflation since then. I believe a new one will be coming out in the next year or so. To your questions, median salary for the first few years in practice falls in the low 80K range. (So maybe mid-80K now, if you factor in inflation.) Peds makes somewhat less than adults, BUT this may be accounted for by the fact that peds specialists are more likely to work part-time and more likely to be women. Midwest and Illinois are slightly below the national median for income, but metro areas (like Chicago) are a bit above the national median.

There's also been a very interesting conversation on a couple listserves lately about how salary surveys completely ignore the effects of student debt repayment. This can obviously be *very* significant, especially if you have to pay your way through grad school without tuition wavers (i.e., many Psy.D. and some Ph.D. programs).

Thanks for the article. Very helpful.

 

[OneNeuroDoctor]

Ranges from$ 42,000 for Novice to $117,000 for Veteran.

http://vikipedio.org/neuropsychologist-salary-and-job-description/

 

[PsyDr]

Have a look at Jerry Sweet's neuropsychology salary survey (link here), which has more information than you could ever ask for -- including salary breakdowns by career stage, peds vs. adults, geographic region, practice setting, boarded vs. not, and on and on and on. This is from 2010, so add 5-8% to account for inflation...

If you know if a 5-8% INCREASE of reimbursement, you should probably call the practice directorate.

 

[WisNeuro]

Ranges from$ 42,000 for Novice to $117,000 for Veteran.

http://vikipedio.org/neuropsychologist-salary-and-job-description/

Later career people are making well over 117k, especially if they are not in the public sector. And, I don't know anyone working for 42k. My old psychometrists made more than that. Starting salary in the VA is 88-92ish, straight out of postdoc.

My fiancee is an MD, I had her look at the salary information for her specialty. Numbers are WAY off. I'm curious as to where this site gets its information from, because it's essentially useless. I have worked in the Midwest, South, and Pacific Northwest, and those numbers are nowhere near accurate in any of those locales.

 

[smalltownpsych]

Later career people are making well over 117k, especially if they are not in the public sector. And, I don't know anyone working for 42k. My old psychometrists made more than that. Starting salary in the VA is 88-92ish, straight out of postdoc.

My fiancee is an MD, I had her look at the salary information for her specialty. Numbers are WAY off. I'm curious as to where this site gets its information from, because it's essentially useless. I have worked in the Midwest, South, and Pacific Northwest, and those numbers are nowhere near accurate in any of those locales.

I think the article was probably referring to postdocs when they said 42k which is probably not too far off. Although that is about what I got during my postdoc year and I think neuro postdocs are probably getting more than that these days. It is also quite misleading since they are calling a postdoc a neuropsychologist when they are not. Typical type of bad info from people outside our field.

 

[OneNeuroDoctor]

Some outliers may exists as this data could have been based on self report surveys. Private practice neuropsychologist typically have one or more Neuropsych techs with contracts to increase there income closer to mid to upper $200,000 range, but they are paying Tech $20-40 thousand per year.

I think this data may be from employed neuropsychologist rather than Private Practice Neuropsychologist.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

The sweet studies split all of this information out: years experience, setting, region, etc.

 

[erg923]

Some outliers may exists as this data could have been based on self report surveys. Private practice neuropsychologist typically have one or more Neuropsych techs with contracts to increase there income closer to mid to upper $200,000 range, but they are paying Tech $20-40 thousand per year.

Actually, most private practitioners do NOT have/use techs.

 

[WisNeuro]

Actually, most private practitioners do NOT have/use techs.

Bout 50/50 from the ~10 that I have had experience with. Although in hospital (Non-VA) settings it's been pretty high in usage. But, back to the more important info. Everyone, please disregard the garbage data of that vikipedio site. Always check your sources, especially shady sites that no one has ever heard of that does not even reference how and where they got their information from.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

The Sweet et al. article is by far the best data out there about neuropsych income across diff geographic areas. A new one should be out soon.

 

[smalltownpsych]

Some outliers may exists as this data could have been based on self report surveys. Private practice neuropsychologist typically have one or more Neuropsych techs with contracts to increase there income closer to mid to upper $200,000 range, but they are paying Tech $20-40 thousand per year.

I think this data may be from employed neuropsychologist rather than Private Practice Neuropsychologist.

It sounds to me as though you are stating your opinion or observations or anecdotes or maybe even pure conjecture as though there was data to support it. For example, the statement that they were excluding private practice salaries was based on...? The information about how much a neuro doc bills is based on...? How many hire techs is based on...? How much they pay the techs? Sure this is an informal forum and not a peer reviewed article so we don't usually cite sources, but to just pull numbers out of the air without acknowledging that one is doing that seems a bit irresponsible.

 

[PsyDr]

The Sweet survey puts the mean private practice NP's gross income at 130k. SD is 89k. Range was 30k-465k. 75th% was 150k. Reimbursement rates have not increased between 2010-2016. And net is not reported.

OND is stating that the upper 25th percentile is "typical" , which is not supported.

 

[WisNeuro]

30k in PP? I seriously hope that person is just working part-time.

 

[PsyDr]

It's a lot worse than that: Sweet reports gross, not net.

Imagine what the net is for that 30k gross after trying to pay office rent, test materials, phone lines, office insurance, health insurance, billing, etc.

That 465k number could include an unholy number of employee salaries, and an office rent that would accommodate them.

 

[smalltownpsych]

Are they counting people who do private practice on the side in addition to a full-time salary job? Even the median seems like really low gross revenue numbers for a full-time job.

 

[rainedallnight]

I think the article was probably referring to postdocs when they said 42k which is probably not too far off. Although that is about what I got during my postdoc year and I think neuro postdocs are probably getting more than that these days.

Not really - the neuro fellowships I'm applying to range from $31K/year to $46K/year, with some giving a 3% raise in the second year. VAs consistently pay around $45K/year, with a little variation by region. AMCs and other non-VA settings tend to be more in the $35K range, though there are a few that pay closer to $40 or $45K.