Academic Salary in BMT

[Duke1K]

I'm a BMT-focused fellow applying for jobs later this year, and would like to stay in academia (but not wedded to it). I am completely oblivious to how compensation works for physicians. What is a typical starting salary for an academic transplant physician? Let's say I do 2 full day clinics a week (~38 patients including 6 new), plus inpatient BMT service one week every month. How many RVUs would this generate, and how does salary/clinic volume compare in non-academic places?

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[whoknows2012]

I'm a BMT-focused fellow applying for jobs later this year, and would like to stay in academia (but not wedded to it). I am completely oblivious to how compensation works for physicians. What is a typical starting salary for an academic transplant physician? Let's say I do 2 full day clinics a week (~38 patients including 6 new), plus inpatient BMT service one week every month. How many RVUs would this generate, and how does salary/clinic volume compare in non-academic places?

For an estimate use 2-2.5 rvus/patient both in and out patient to get an approximation.

Rough estimate with average of 15 inpatients when you’re on inpatient service gets you to somewhere between 6000-7000 wRVUs per year which sounds about right. An extra few weeks of inpatient service or an extra afternoon a week could bump that up a bit.

Academic salaries for BMT vary across the country. In the northeast you’re looking at 225-275 at most institutions. Try and find a job where you have an opportunity to make an RVU bonus.

 

[CatFactorial]

Agree with the above

Most academic BMT positions I looked at were in 225-275, which is quite frankly, too low.

If you are at a busy academic program with an RVU bonus, you could make significantly more. Where I trained the starting salaries were low 200s but due to the crushing transplant volumes attendings were making closer to 400

At Private groups (north side, Hackensack, CBCI, etc) you make considerably more but are worked for it

 

[Duke1K]

Meanwhile my older brother has 3 houses with a combined 7-figure income working three days a week at best as a corporate goon, and my younger brother who is perpetually funemployed always has a higher salary than I do (when he has a job). I have friends from college who've retired already. I love what I do, but sometimes the counterfactual leaves me with much to be desired.

Thought experiment: if I work inpatient every day of the year, it seems like I'd be pulling ~13.5K wRVUs; does that really only equate to ~500K? What's the ceiling in BMT?

 

[whoknows2012]

Meanwhile my older brother has 3 houses with a combined 7-figure income working three days a week at best as a corporate goon, and my younger brother who is perpetually funemployed always has a higher salary than I do (when he has a job). I have friends from college who've retired already. I love what I do, but sometimes the counterfactual leaves me with much to be desired.

Thought experiment: if I work inpatient every day of the year, it seems like I'd be pulling ~13.5K wRVUs; does that really only equate to ~500K? What's the ceiling in BMT?

Depends on the per/wRVU $$ amount. I do inpatient leukemia (as I’ve alluded to in many other posts on here) and the wRVU per year is indeed quite high (though not quite as high as you mentioned) so if base is say $250k and cutoff for bonus is 5-6k, at 15$/wRVU you’re looking at ~75k bonus, at 50$/wRVU you’re looking at 250k bonus. So yes right around 500k unless you find a gig (say hybrid or academic “lite”) that pays 60-75$/wRVU you’re looking at maxing out in the 350-500k range best case scenario

 

[HemeOncHopeful19]

Meanwhile my older brother has 3 houses with a combined 7-figure income working three days a week at best as a corporate goon, and my younger brother who is perpetually funemployed always has a higher salary than I do (when he has a job). I have friends from college who've retired already. I love what I do, but sometimes the counterfactual leaves me with much to be desired.

Thought experiment: if I work inpatient every day of the year, it seems like I'd be pulling ~13.5K wRVUs; does that really only equate to ~500K? What's the ceiling in BMT?

You can (for now) make good money in our field.

You can also do Academic BMT.

You can’t do both. Just be happy you have the option for either, many docs don’t. I’d wager fellows a decade from now will be jealous of us, unfortunately.

 

[Ubba]

Meanwhile my older brother has 3 houses with a combined 7-figure income working three days a week at best as a corporate goon, and my younger brother who is perpetually funemployed always has a higher salary than I do (when he has a job). I have friends from college who've retired already. I love what I do, but sometimes the counterfactual leaves me with much to be desired.

Thought experiment: if I work inpatient every day of the year, it seems like I'd be pulling ~13.5K wRVUs; does that really only equate to ~500K? What's the ceiling in BMT?

Corporates have ruthless personalities. Most docs don't. We went to med school because we're good at taking tests and wanted well-defined career paths. Even with this personality, your older bother is in the minority; most people who dream of ending up in his position end up as Michael Scott in Scranton, PA. I suspect most of us would sell out for a 3-day-a-week corporate job paying in the millions.

The economics of US healthcare are like a Rube Goldberg conception of a Gordian Knot. On the one hand, we MDs are basically a cartel or guild. OTOH, the finances are screwed up by laws like EMTALA (not taking a position here on the prudence or appropriateness thereof) and we, along with taxpayers as a whole, are left with the bills. It's hard to say what we're worth in a fair market, but considering that low-level lawyers can make 400/hr and they have no residency or fellowship opportunity costs, it's probably more than what we get.

 

[randomhemoncpd]

Will just say that jobs that make you go on service 16 weeks a year, see another 40 pts a week in clinic, and give you no protected time and pay you $250k are a scam. You can do much better if you look hard -- it won't be at Harvard, but plenty of mid-tier programs will pay you a lot more than that. Private practice BMT jobs can push a million.

Hackensack was pretty abusive to a friend of mine -- his RVU figures were well in the 5 digits but compensation was a joke with no path forward to partner.