2020 FM Physicians - what do you earn?

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Ok I posted earlier but I got new jobs and I know upcoming graduates are looking...

$190,000 working in a community health center. All appointments are 30 min. I work 4 days a week, 1 day is admin.

$1000 a day abortion care (I usually do 2-3 shifts per month, hours are usually 9-3 or 4).

Still doing telemedicine which is $50 per consult and I currently have about 50 people on my panel.

And lastly I do some consulting type work coming up with training modules for example and my rate is $150/hour. Wasn’t sure what to charge but spoke with some people in FM and that’s what they recommended. Right now I’m working on 2 projects.

Hope that’s helpful!
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Splenda88 said:
What's you salary working 4 days/week?

FM is having good these days. One of my co-residents spouse is out on the job market now as a PGY3... She gets one offer 250k for 4 1/2 days/wk + benefits. It's a very desirable city and she thinks it's not good enough and it should be 4 days/week.
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Can you get similar jobs as IM outpatient primary care?
 
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AMEHigh said:
Ok I posted earlier but I got new jobs and I know upcoming graduates are looking...

$190,000 working in a community health center. All appointments are 30 min. I work 4 days a week, 1 day is admin.

$1000 a day abortion care (I usually do 2-3 shifts per month, hours are usually 9-3 or 4).

Still doing telemedicine which is $50 per consult and I currently have about 50 people on my panel.

And lastly I do some consulting type work coming up with training modules for example and my rate is $150/hour. Wasn’t sure what to charge but spoke with some people in FM and that’s what they recommended. Right now I’m working on 2 projects.

Hope that’s helpful!
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So that’s 3 days in the clinic with one admin day?
 
AMEHigh said:
Ok I posted earlier but I got new jobs and I know upcoming graduates are looking...

$190,000 working in a community health center. All appointments are 30 min. I work 4 days a week, 1 day is admin.

$1000 a day abortion care (I usually do 2-3 shifts per month, hours are usually 9-3 or 4).

Still doing telemedicine which is $50 per consult and I currently have about 50 people on my panel.

And lastly I do some consulting type work coming up with training modules for example and my rate is $150/hour. Wasn’t sure what to charge but spoke with some people in FM and that’s what they recommended. Right now I’m working on 2 projects.

Hope that’s helpful!
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Is this representative of community health center work? 30 min appointments seems like a pipe dream in a lot of areas.
 
hallowmann said:
Is this representative of community health center work? 30 min appointments seems like a pipe dream in a lot of areas.
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That's strange. I think it should be 45 minutes for new patient and 30 for follow ups...
 
Splenda88 said:
That's strange. I think it should be 45 minutes for new patient and 30 for follow ups...
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Where I'm at follow-ups are typically 15 min and 30 min for news. 45 min I think only happens if its a new medicare annual wellness.

Honestly, I think 30 min is a sweet spot, but I rarely am seeing a pt with 1 acute problem that isn't there for a young annual.
 
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hallowmann said:
Where I'm at follow-ups are typically 15 min and 30 min for news. 45 min I think only happens if its a new medicare annual wellness.

Honestly, I think 30 min is a sweet spot, but I rarely am seeing a pt with 1 acute problem that isn't there for a young annual.
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It's 30 minutes for everyone where I am... But I still fall behind sometimes, especially when you are presenting to attendings that want to know every details.
 
sloh said:
30 min is pretty generous. At Kaiser, physicians only get like 20 minutes per patient
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No wonder I don't see myself doing outpatient...

20 minutes is not enough unless you are only addressing one issue during these visits.
 
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Yeah documentation is included in that time. There's also an expectation that the FM physicians will tend to their inbox messages and phone calls which takes up a lot of uncompensated time. Your employment hinges on you hitting patient satisfaction score thresholds. The compensation is great at ~250k/yr but the work and hours (when accounting for all the uncompensated work) is a great recipe for burnout.
 
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Splenda88 said:
No wonder I don't see myself doing outpatient...

20 minutes is not enough unless you are only addressing one issue during these visits.
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Nah, just takes time to get efficient. All of my visits are 15 minutes. The single issue acute visits are easily under 10 minutes which balances out with new patients or complicated established patients.
 
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hallowmann said:
Is this representative of community health center work? 30 min appointments seems like a pipe dream in a lot of areas.
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The previous place I was at was 20 min for everything.

This job I started during COVID and I was told they went from 20 to 30 min appts in order to not make the waiting room crowded. I’d be fine with 20 min appts but 30 min is certainly nice since patients are often late.

Edited to add: we also do things like prenatal care and those first visits often take awhile especially if doing an ultrasound. We also do procedures so those definitely typically take more than 15 min once the pt is roomed. So everything is 30 min to keep it simple, especially during COVID.
 
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Splenda88 said:
No wonder I don't see myself doing outpatient...

20 minutes is not enough unless you are only addressing one issue during these visits.
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Here are some FM outpatient situations:

1. 20 min visits.
Unlimited physicals, short staffed medical assistant or secretary, homeless, underinsured, uninsured patient panel.
Double booked several times a day
About 40% of patients are new
Average clinician lasts 1.5 years at this clinic

2. One year ramp up. You see 1 pt an hour for the first 3-4 months. After 1.5 years you see 17 patients in 8 clinical hours.
Lot of support. Very organized.

3. 20 min visits, have to work in ICU during covid. Your inbox takes 3-4 hours more than most jobs due to burdensome paperwork.

Number 2 is ideal and not *too* far outside the average IMHO. Situation 1 and 3 are challenging
 
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DrMeowMeow said:
Arizona pays about $52/RVU. You can make 256k if you reach 50th percentile which is 4886 RVUs
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What kind of patient load is necessary to produce this number of wRVUs?

4886 is ~23 wRVUs per day assuming 4.5 days/week and 47 work weeks a year.
 
Ibn Alnafis MD said:
What kind of patient load is necessary to produce this number of wRVUs?

4886 is ~23 wRVUs per day assuming 4.5 days/week and 47 work weeks a year.
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Bare minimum you should be getting 1.3 wRVUs per patient encounter which gives you 17.5 patients/day to hit that yearly total based on the numbers you gave.

Realistically, most of us are hitting more like 1.5 wRVUs per patient which is 15 patients/day.
 
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Cranjis McBasketball said:
Oh gotcha. Is it HRSA or something who determines rural vs suburban vs urban?

Thats interesting to learn!
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Many different market forces at play but the biggest one is supply and demand. Employers have to pay more to attract docs out to rural areas, whereas major metro employers probably have multiple emails per week asking for jobs.
 
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I'm 100% inpatient. Our group started off at 259K out of residency, plus production and quality bonuses. It's impossible not to hit the production bonuses.
 
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360k base salary (drop from last year)
Breakdown as follows:
25% inpatient (mix of adults and peds, work with residents) (set salary, updated yearly to reflect how many actual shifts I complete)
20% educational time (med students) (set salary, based on ACGME data)
7% precepting residents in clinic (based on ACGME clinical salaries for academic centers and dependent on academic rank)
48% my own panel (entirely wRVU based, I try to schedule 14 per half day and this works out to around 7 half days a week)

I do add in extra clinics from time to time to meet demand of patients. Panel average around 1400-1600

Additional stipend for panel size to help with messaging, refills, etc. This is helpful to keep me from completely losing my mind.
 
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Between 250k and 300k including salary, loan repayment (40k tax free a year, but runs out after 5 years total), and yearly bonus for outpatient 30 minute appointments with 20% admin time at the VA in the mountain west.

Downsides are the paperwork and decreased autonomy working in a big system with a lot of policies, but I think well worth it for the time with patients and a good salary and benefits. Good specialty support, lots of physicians I can talk to, nice for early career. Low risk as well. The amount I make has only gone up like usual with covid-19, and overall a very stable salary. Disability, health, and life insurance all wrapped up in benefits. Low cost retirement plan (TSP) with pension in top. Statutory immunity from personal liability from malpractice lawsuits. I dream about doing something else, but it's hard to beat really.
 
Some of you guys make too much $$$
 
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Splenda88 said:
Kidding... I am ok with you guys killing it because people in medicine think FM docs make minimum wage.
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Shhh...let’s keep it that way, at least until after I’m in the workforce, 😂
 
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jm192 said:
I'm 100% inpatient. Our group started off at 259K out of residency, plus production and quality bonuses. It's impossible not to hit the production bonuses.
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What size are these bonuses? What do you end up with altogether?
 
$470k in 2020. I'm an independent contractor now working from home. I gave up the daily clinic grind in 2019 and haven't regretted it.
 
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hsmooth said:
$470k in 2020. I'm an independent contractor now working from home. I gave up the daily clinic grind in 2019 and haven't regretted it.
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Are you doing telemedicine full time? Any other side gigs? I didn't think telemedicine could be this lucrative
 
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Prehealth1011 said:
Are you doing telemedicine full time? Any other side gigs? I didn't think telemedicine could be this lucrative
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I'm not hired full time by any one telemedicine company, but yes I work on 3 telemedicine platforms as an independent contractor. That makes up the bulk of my work.
 
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@hsmooth if you don't mind me asking, how many hours are you working per week? and do you get paid for no-shows?
 
Prehealth1011 said:
@hsmooth if you don't mind me asking, how many hours are you working per week? and do you get paid for no-shows?
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I work probably about 40 hours a week, around my own schedule. No, I only get paid for completed consults. If a patient doesn't pick up my phone call, they get placed back into the queue or their appointment cancelled.
 
hsmooth said:
I work probably about 40 hours a week, around my own schedule. No, I only get paid for completed consults. If a patient doesn't pick up my phone call, they get placed back into the queue or their appointment cancelled.
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How do you gain access to these platforms and they don't employ you?
 
RadsWFA1900 said:
How do you gain access to these platforms and they don't employ you?
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You can be hired as an independent contractor (1099, rather than W2) without benefits of typical 'employment'. So no health insurance, no 401k matching, no disability / life insurance. Many companies will at least provide malpractice though.
 
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hsmooth said:
You can be hired as an independent contractor (1099, rather than W2) without benefits of typical 'employment'. So no health insurance, no 401k matching, no disability / life insurance. Many companies will at least provide malpractice though.
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How many patients do you see on average?
 
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