APMA Salary Survey - States in Demand

Started by sdupre_apma
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sdupre_apma

sdupre_apma

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Hi All,
Sam here with my regularly scheduled request for participation in the APMA compensation survey with Marit Health. As a whole, participation has been amazing, we're at over 900 responses nationally, with ~50% of responses coming from those with 0 to 10 years of post-training experience. This is going to paint a hell of a comprehensive picture, especially when we have other previous practice surveys from other sources to compare it to. To put that 50%+ in perspective, 2025 responses from one survey I was looking at recently had ~32% of responses coming from that same cohort.

If you practice in the following states, we would especially love your participation: AK, DC, DE, HI, ID, KS, MS, MT, ND, NE, NH, NV, RI, SD, VT, WV, WY

These are states where either we have relatively few responses in general or where we have responses, but those responses are lagging compared to the relative proportion of DPMs located in that state. For privacy reasons, if there are below certain levels of response for areas, I won't see information at that fine scale. I would see it aggregated to above-state levels, which limits the level of information we can pull from the data to give back to the community of podiatrists.

Plus, 50 responses is great for a state like Alaska with few DPMs if I want to be sure we're capturing trends that don't just reflect a few people, but 50 responses would be... suboptimal for California for example.

If you haven't participated yet, especially if you're in one of those states, the link is here: Marit Health. Plus... $100 or $500 is always nice!

Thank you again everyone!
Sam
 
You can put me down if you like... 194k/491k net / gross last year... $63k/193k net/gross 2023 (solo private practice).
...was roughly $75k-180k yearly for about a decade before that (various PP associate or supergroup or mobile or MSG or hospital employed)

I'm not apma member and not signing up for a website or getting the all "affiliate follow up communication." Too much of that already. 🙂

...good luck with this, it's important work. I can tell you flat out that this study will run into massive "funding bias" (as you stats guys say) and likely not be published at all if it won't be edited. There are thousands and thousands of young DPMs with terrible ROI on their educational debt (many not young ones also). At the least, maybe the Apma will get a bit of a wakeup call from the true data and stop opening new schools... before they have it "adjusted" to make a good recruiting tool for existing podiatry schools. Nonetheless, important work. 👍
 
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Feli said:
You can put me down if you like... 194k/491k net / gross last year... $63k/193k gross/net 2023 (solo private practice).
...was roughly $75k-180k yearly for about a decade before that (various PP associate or supergroup or mobile or MSG or hospital employed)

I'm not apma member and not signing up for a website or getting the all "affiliate follow up communication." Too much of that already. 🙂

...good luck with this, it's important work. I can tell you flat out that this study will run into massive "funding bias" (as you stats guys say) and likely not be published at all if it won't be edited. There are thousands and thousands of young DPMs with terrible ROI on their educational debt (many not young ones also). At the least, maybe the Apma will get a bit of a wakeup call from the true data and stop opening new schools... before they have it "adjusted" to make a good recruiting tool for existing podiatry schools. Nonetheless, important work. 👍
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Thanks Feli,
I appreciate you being willing to give this much information, even with your clear distrust. To which I say... fair... always good to have a healthy skepticism about the systems that be. If someone is out there saying they have your best interests at heart, that's something that need to be proven.

So yeah, much appreciated! Am I correct based on your footer block that I could attribute that data to New Mexico and that you finished residency/fellowships and entered post-training practice in 2013? I ask about the 2013 point as Years of Experience is one of the most important data points for me and I'd like to be able to attribute your salary information correctly to a YOE measure. I couldn't input it into the Marit systems of course, as I don't have anything even close to manual access to their systems, and they want to be careful about entering incomplete surveys for data integrity reasons. With that said, I can integrate it into the deidentified data in some way once we receive that post-data collection. It's imperfect, but at least it's a signal.

For what it's worth, there are multiple reports coming out of all of this from different sources. Marit is releasing a report based on this data, developed by their team, for general access. That report from Marit won't be going through any form of review or approval by APMA leadership, it's fully their own product. APMA is releasing a report with some specific deep dives for APMA members as part of membership benefits. We have MANY plans for questions that we can answer that we have received from members based on this data and so people will have access to products from this data in that way too over the next year. Finally, anyone who's filled out salary information can go to the Marit site, look up podiatrists, and see detailed summary statistics which are updated continually (though with a little lag for Marit's validation process, like a week maybe?) as new entries come in. Speaking as a statistician with experience digging into questionable "official statistics" released from various foreign governments *cough cough* Eurasian gold export figure post-Ukraine war that are definitely 100% NOT laundering of Russian gold *cough cough*, you can figure out a lot about how reliable official statistics are based on triangulating different sources if you really want to.

I point out all of that to say simply that results released from this can be interrogated by people outside of APMA or Marit. We're planning a pretty prompt release timeline so you should be able to see the results of all of this before too long.
Thank you again!
 
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Feli said:
You can put me down if you like... 194k/491k net / gross last year... $63k/193k net/gross 2023 (solo private practice).
...was roughly $75k-180k yearly for about a decade before that (various PP associate or supergroup or mobile or MSG or hospital employed)

I'm not apma member and not signing up for a website or getting the all "affiliate follow up communication." Too much of that already. 🙂

...good luck with this, it's important work. I can tell you flat out that this study will run into massive "funding bias" (as you stats guys say) and likely not be published at all if it won't be edited. There are thousands and thousands of young DPMs with terrible ROI on their educational debt (many not young ones also). At the least, maybe the Apma will get a bit of a wakeup call from the true data and stop opening new schools... before they have it "adjusted" to make a good recruiting tool for existing podiatry schools. Nonetheless, important work. 👍
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Thanks Dr. Felice for your disclosure. I was expecting your salary is much higher than those numbers!!! I have been reading most of your posts since I knew the forum. Are you working full time ?
 
podiatryresident said:
Thanks Dr. Felice for your disclosure. I was expecting your salary is much higher than those numbers!!! I have been reading most of your posts since I knew the forum. Are you working full time ?
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It's detailed in the thread linked. PP owner has some other tax advantages, but that's basically it.

I am ~20pts/d 4.0 days per week, some of those half days are surgery... 0.5d/wk admin time or off.
I am full time per se, but seeing a whole lot fewer than I did as a full-time associate (and making more $).
Any way you chop it, regardless of billing/services/style, you are trading your time for money. The more/less you work, the more/less you make.
I could make more if I worked more, and that year was my first full year open... but there are really no shortcuts if you want to like what you see in the mirror.

The paths to making a lot (significantly more than avg DPM, so talking $500k+) in podiatry are essentially:
  • hospital or msg employed and doing and billing a ton, esp wound care (not bad, usually not very unethical depending on the billing... but kinda a young person game or risk burnout with usually lots of call and ER pts)
  • PP owner/partner farming associates (giving people jobs, but giving them a haircut in the process)
  • PP owner/partner in pod/msg/ortho/etc and doing a lot of stuff like wound "grafts," varicose veins, "custom" dme, various cash and big ticket items. (not my style, but many do it)
  • income outside traditional podiatry and seeing pts ("academic" jobs, industry consulting fees, ownership or "strategic partnership" in something... which you typically refer to, etc)

As @Hybrocure said, I do none of those paths... just basic bread and butter podiatry (aka what pts need and what makes me feel good, avoids burnout, largely avoids wound care I find depressing). But that's not the topic of this thread; you are welcome to convo in other thread or msg me if any questions. 👍
 
Feli said:
It's detailed in the thread linked. PP owner has some other tax advantages, but that's basically it.

I am ~20pts/d 4.0 days per week, some of those half days are surgery... 0.5d/wk admin time or off.
I am full time per se, but seeing a whole lot fewer than I did as a full-time associate (and making more $).
Any way you chop it, regardless of billing/services/style, you are trading your time for money. The more/less you work, the more/less you make.
I could make more if I worked more, and that year was my first full year open... but there are really no shortcuts if you want to like what you see in the mirror.

The paths to making a lot (significantly more than avg DPM, so talking $500k+) in podiatry are essentially:
  • hospital or msg employed and doing and billing a ton, esp wound care (not bad, usually not very unethical depending on the billing... but kinda a young person game or risk burnout with usually lots of call and ER pts)
  • PP owner/partner farming associates (giving people jobs, but giving them a haircut in the process)
  • PP owner/partner in pod/msg/ortho/etc and doing a lot of stuff like wound "grafts," varicose veins, "custom" dme, various cash and big ticket items. (not my style, but many do it)
  • income outside traditional podiatry and seeing pts ("academic" jobs, industry consulting fees, ownership or "strategic partnership" in something... which you typically refer to, etc)

As @Hybrocure said, I do none of those paths... just basic bread and butter podiatry (aka what pts need and what makes me feel good, avoids burnout, largely avoids wound care I find depressing). But that's not the topic of this thread; you are welcome to convo in other thread or msg me if any questions. 👍
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Counterpoint here, though I definitely appreciate Feli emphasizing keeping this thread on topic... I'd welcome discussion on these points. This is fascinating to read as I continue to develop my conceptual structures around what you might call "pathways to compensation" or "conceptual trajectories" that might differentiate the career situations of podiatrists. Making those terms up on the spot really, but hopefully they communicate what I mean.

I'd ask (respectfully of course), does anyone particularly disagree with any of the points that Feli has made in regards to these various paths? Anything people would add that Feli did not? I'm always interested in seeing what truisms in a field people actually agree with or don't.

Haha, I'm going to try and say it's "my" thread, so I'm cool with the rabbit hole!
 
sdupre_apma said:
Counterpoint here, though I definitely appreciate Feli emphasizing keeping this thread on topic... I'd welcome discussion on these points. This is fascinating to read as I continue to develop my conceptual structures around what you might call "pathways to compensation" or "conceptual trajectories" that might differentiate the career situations of podiatrists. Making those terms up on the spot really, but hopefully they communicate what I mean.

I'd ask (respectfully of course), does anyone particularly disagree with any of the points that Feli has made in regards to these various paths? Anything people would add that Feli did not? I'm always interested in seeing what truisms in a field people actually agree with or don't.

Haha, I'm going to try and say it's "my" thread, so I'm cool with the rabbit hole!
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Like many things in life show me the incentive I will show you the outcome.

Compensation for a lot of people's going to change once they finally get rid of amniotic grafts. People put them on because they pay. Shaved biopsies, manual muscle testing, nerve biopsy, whatever. This is not unique to podiatry, but it happens in medicine somebody finds a CPT code to exploit, hit it hard and wait for Medicare to stop reimbursing like it does and then it's on to the next one. Rinse and repeat. It's the only way a lot of private practices can stay alive and get out sized returns unless you want to be fair and honest and do what the patient needs like Feli does.
 
DYK343 said:
Thats about 300-350k hospital employed no surgery.
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Yea I think that will be stat bro's primary finding - a huge amount of pods are in private practice relative to the rest of medicine. But we all know this.

It seems like not that many private practice people are responding to the survey. That's just based on my quick review of what is available in the Marit app.
 
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air bud said:
Like many things in life show me the incentive I will show you the outcome.

Compensation for a lot of people's going to change once they finally get rid of amniotic grafts. People put them on because they pay. Shaved biopsies, manual muscle testing, nerve biopsy, whatever...
Click to expand...
"Balance" braces,
nail "biopsy,"
varicose injects,
laser for toenails,
hocus OTC products,
ultrasound injects (for nonsense like PF and first MPJ),
iPad "custom" braces,
Qtenza,
kickbacks on amnio or surg implants or many other things,
laser session for pain,
ABI on everyone,
... probably at least 100 more grifts.

Remember EtOH sclerosing injects, ozone injects? 🤣

[fwiw, I did have polidocanol in my cart online recently.... couldn't pull the trigger. All those are tempting; the money is good. At the end of the day, it's just not what we went to school for imo. I try to treat ppl like I would my friends/fam. I don't fault pods who do some/all of that stuff, but it's just not for me.]

DYK343 said:
Thats about 300-350k hospital employed no surgery.
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Yeah, I'm aware of that... but I'd probably cry every lunch break if I scraped wounds and could't wear what I want, hire/fire who I want, set my own hours and days off, had to be a yes-man to an admin. I dunno.

I talked to a couple pods at the hospital I was working at 5yrs ago (IHS). They currently have ok admins (terrible ones when I left), but they now have locums DPMs doing illogical RRA stuff on bugguns with high A1c and then leaving the post-op wreckage to them. Staff continues to be a fairly revolving door (any good ones get xfer to Ortho or other clinics). I don't miss it. The fewer ppl that can eff up my day, the better. 🙂
 
Calogero said:
Yea I think that will be stat bro's primary finding - a huge amount of pods are in private practice relative to the rest of medicine. But we all know this.

It seems like not that many private practice people are responding to the survey. That's just based on my quick review of what is available in the Marit app.
Click to expand...
So, actually, we're doing ok there! Pretty even split between private practice self-employed responses and hospitalist responses I'd say, a bit greater proportion in the not-self-employed-but-private-practice-group class, and the rest in various other categories
 
sdupre_apma said:
So, actually, we're doing ok there! Pretty even split between private practice self-employed responses and hospitalist responses I'd say, a bit greater proportion in the not-self-employed-but-private-practice-group class, and the rest in various other categories
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That is probably 70% of podiatrists.... not hospital employ, not owner. That is from prior surveys (APMA, ACFAS, etc).
If you only have "a bit" more employee non-hospital as opposed to owner PP and hospital employ DPMs... big problem.

The vast majority of DPMs work for other podiatrists, for podiatry supergroups, for mobile podiatry, a few for PP ortho or multi-speciality groups, etc. This is plain to see at any podiatry meeting or state listing (if a small enough state to get and decipher that online state licenses directory). It has been that way a long time: podiatry's a private practice profession (although the percent of pods hospital employ is creeping up a bit... still nowhere near rate of that status for any MD/DO specialty).

I would imagine the owner PP demographic for DPMs is declining a bit... supergroups like Village, UpperLine, FACMA, etc etc have been on the rise, so you have MANY employed DPMs with few or no DPMs owning it (venture capital and MBA types owning, maybe they plug a few DPMs in admin spots).

Calogero said:
Yea I think that will be stat bro's primary finding - a huge amount of pods are in private practice relative to the rest of medicine. But we all know this.

It seems like not that many private practice people are responding to the survey. That's just based on my quick review of what is available in the Marit app.
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Correct... that has been the downfall of nearly every pod income study. At least two thirds of DPMs are employed PP.

APMA goal here is to have the income turn out high (to be a marketing "look at this" tool). That should go with out saying after it was purported that MGMA is "those numbers are average", lol. They will encourage admin DPM, group owners, hospital pods, etc to respond to an income survey (and many of those are happy to show off their income).

On the other side, an associate DPM a couple years out of school who keeps missing bonus and is making $100k won't respond. A pod working an associate professor job at a podiatry school making $125k won't fill out the survey. A mobile podiatry HealthDrive pod or one scrapping their own house call or nursing homes biz won't bother. They're embarrassed. They're busy (trying to look for new job and/or hit their bonus).
 
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Calogero said:
Yea I think that will be stat bro's primary finding - a huge amount of pods are in private practice relative to the rest of medicine. But we all know this.

It seems like not that many private practice people are responding to the survey. That's just based on my quick review of what is available in the Marit app.
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This is accurate. Seems to be more hospital employed, MSG and ortho. So the survey will not be trustworthy in my opinion
 
Calogero said:
I still think this is the best survey I've seen, and continues to show that this job is good if you end up in the right places.
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Misleading vague reply. Since we are talking numbers what percentage of podiatrists work in hospitals, ortho or MSG groups?

I would be willing to bet less than 30% of the profession does. The 30% is showing up and filling out the survey because they got something to gloat about.

Private practices are not handing out contracts to new associates even in the same ballpark as the avg salary listed on this survey site.
 
Calogero said:
I still think this is the best survey I've seen, and continues to show that this job is good if you end up in the right places.
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You shouldn't have to count on "ending up in the right place" to have a decent income after this junk. The bottom of the barrel MD/DO/DDS don't have to.

If we had a third of the ones we do maybe it'd be different
 
Feli said:
That is probably 70% of podiatrists.... not hospital employ, not owner. That is from prior surveys (APMA, ACFAS, etc).
If you only have "a bit" more employee non-hospital as opposed to owner PP and hospital employ DPMs... big problem.

The vast majority of DPMs work for other podiatrists, for podiatry supergroups, for mobile podiatry, a few for PP ortho or multi-speciality groups, etc. This is plain to see at any podiatry meeting or state listing (if a small enough state to get and decipher that online state licenses directory). It has been that way a long time: podiatry's a private practice profession (although the percent of pods hospital employ is creeping up a bit... still nowhere near rate of that status for any MD/DO specialty).

I would imagine the owner PP demographic for DPMs is declining a bit... supergroups like Village, UpperLine, FACMA, etc etc have been on the rise, so you have MANY employed DPMs with few or no DPMs owning it (venture capital and MBA types owning, maybe they plug a few DPMs in admin spots).


Correct... that has been the downfall of nearly every pod income study. At least two thirds of DPMs are employed PP.

APMA goal here is to have the income turn out high (to be a marketing "look at this" tool). That should go with out saying after it was purported that MGMA is "those numbers are average", lol. They will encourage admin DPM, group owners, hospital pods, etc to respond to an income survey (and many of those are happy to show off their income).

On the other side, an associate DPM a couple years out of school who keeps missing bonus and is making $100k won't respond. A pod working an associate professor job at a podiatry school making $125k won't fill out the survey. A mobile podiatry HealthDrive pod or one scrapping their own house call or nursing homes biz won't bother. They're embarrassed. They're busy (trying to look for new job and/or hit their bonus).
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Apologies here, I sent that off late and I think I should have given a bit more detail in my response to avoid overly concerning people. So, a few things to note here. First, by "the rest in various other categories", those are less-common subcategories that could fall in the "not hospital employ, not owner" bucket that Feli refers to.

Incorporating that fact, by a "bit more", I should have said, "just under 50% of total responses would be categorized as not hospital employ, not owner". Now, I think we may be getting disproportionally high response rates among hospitalists, that's something I plan to validate (again, all methods will be released along with reported results, anyone can then validate my results against Marit summary stats if they like).

However, I am interested in this piece "That is probably 70% of podiatrists.... not hospital employ, not owner. That is from prior surveys (APMA, ACFAS, etc).". Candidly, I'm not seeing that. I'd welcome seeing any citations otherwise? It's not your job to find sources for me though, so please feel free not to! To give an idea what I'm seeing (not going into any strengths/weaknesses of various sources, just their sheer reported numbers), looking at Podiatry Management's 2025 Annual Survey I see:
1759228544620.png

Which is far from that 70%.
I looked at a recent internal APMA study on a different topic and the distribution had similarities, though not exactly the same as the PM one, but again far from 70%. I just reviewed the limited summary statistics that I had access to on the 2021 ACFAS Practice Economics and Insight Survey and those results didn't have employment type broken down. There were some summary statistics available, but the categories related to owners were not mutually exclusive and thus we can't break them down inferentially this way.
I'll keep digging, but thus far I'm not able to find these sweeping prior survey results that you refer to. Again, not disagreeing, just saying that I'm not finding them so far this morning.

One way or the other, existing comparators are things that the releases from this survey will acknowledge and discuss in terms of "is this difference real or is it a statistical artifact of response distributions?".

Now, I will agree, it is very likely that practice structures have changed. With supergroup developments and similar changes, it's likely that the proportion of podiatrists who are employed, non-owner, non-hospital is higher than it's been. What's the degree of that increase? That's something that I want to find out.

Last thing I'd like to note on this... "APMA goal here is to have the income turn out high (to be a marketing "look at this" tool).". I'm not going to say "trust APMA" or anything like that. Hell, don't trust official statistics without validation and transparency. I'll just continue to ask that people hold off judgement until you see what we find and what we do with all of this.

Warmly,
Sam
 
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Retrograde_Nail said:
Misleading vague reply. Since we are talking numbers what percentage of podiatrists work in hospitals, ortho or MSG groups?

I would be willing to bet less than 30% of the profession does. The 30% is showing up and filling out the survey because they got something to gloat about.

Private practices are not handing out contracts to new associates even in the same ballpark as the avg salary listed on this survey site.
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Thanks for pointing this out "Private practices are not handing out contracts to new associates even in the same ballpark as the avg salary listed on this survey site.".

The existence of some private practices employing new associates at low salaries is one the areas that people here have discussed in regard to the survey and one of the signals that we are seeing in the early data. Yes, those low paid associate positions exist. How often is it happening and to what degree? We don't know, yet. This is why averages can be unhelpful statistical measures if there's high variability in something and if certain subgroups vary in that variance/average.

The real question is, how many people are in those low paying positions, where are they (geographically and in their career), and what are the salary metrics for people in different "positions" within the profession?
Warmly,
Sam
 
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sdupre_apma said:
...The real question is, how many people are in those low paying positions, where are they (geographically and in their career), and what are the salary metrics for people in different "positions" within the profession?
Warmly,
Sam
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There are A LOT.

If you don't think the vast majority of DPMs are PP employed (non-hospital and not owner), then simply look at Upperline Health, FASMA, Village podiatry, Weil group, Beyond Podiatry, and HealthDrive and dozens more similar... they each employ dozens - some hundreds - of podiatrists. That is not to mention all the west coast PP and MSG groups like Kaiser, Sutter, many others. Some may be "nonprofit" or say "junior partner" "doctors have equity program" or some fancy lingo... and podiatrists can put themself in a cooler sounding category if they wish... but they're still all employed DPMs hired by a medium or large healthcare company to see patients. Then, the biggest [pie chart] group by a good margin are simply the hundreds and hundreds of normal podiatry groups with a DPM who employs maybe one or two or even 5-10+ other DPMs (hasn't sold out to PE.... yet?).

For any income study to be solid, you'd have to get a representative sample and honest numbers from those types of DPMs. You will likely find it's about $150k for PP private employed, maybe $175-200k for supergroup, and a bit higher for MSG... but obviously variable based on contracts and area and bonus structure... and how you count or don't count non-salary non-benefit benefits compensation (match, health insurance, etc).

sdupre_apma said:
..., I am interested in this piece "That is probably 70% of podiatrists.... not hospital employ, not owner. That is from prior surveys (APMA, ACFAS, etc).". Candidly, I'm not seeing that. I'd welcome seeing any citations otherwise? It's not your job to find sources for me though, so please feel free not to! To give an idea what I'm seeing (not going into any strengths/weaknesses of various sources, just their sheer reported numbers), looking at Podiatry Management's 2025 Annual Survey I see: ...
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The PM news survey are basically junk... they're just click boxes on their website (no verification whatsoever that it's even a DPM doing it, multiple entries possible, people can put whatever they like, etc). It's fine for a quick look, but those are generally very low quality.

...I will try to do NMex pod license directory this weekend if I can (less than 100 DPMs - maybe even less than 50 actually practicing here, and I know most - so doesn't take a real long time). I can pretty easily and accurately tell you how many and the % who are in ortho group employ, PP supergroup employ, PP regular employed, hospital employ, solo, VA hospital, mobile, etc. Many other states, that's obviously not possible as there are just too many overall and too many inactive/retired licenses.
 
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Why is solo DPM a separate category from solo PC?

Why is a partnership of DPMs a separate category from group PC?

In a different thread we had a discussion about why the majority of physician practices are PCs, which is why BLS is unreliable because the W2 income will be artificially low. Why is this not bearing out in the survey data?
 
If you don’t mind? That would be great. It would be good to have that as a comparator/sanity check. BUT PLEASE SEE THE CAVEAT BELOW.

Side note, I agree, I’d absolutely consider those cases (e.g., Kaiser docs) as not being self-employed or owners, irrespective of title!

No comment on the sources like PM themselves, I just noted that as part of “this is what I’m seeing, can’t find the sweeping prior results that you mentioned”, yet at least.

As a digression, to keep in mind for thought process/comparators, I’m in the process of putting together some high resolution DPM workforce estimates currently. I’m doing it as FTE-equivalents per unit/area for a few reasons and it won’t add up to the same state license totals when aggregated to the state level. My twin is a DO with licenses in NJ and PA, my wife is a therapist with licenses in KY and MD. The licensing info super overestimates numbers because of people with multiple licenses. Not to say it’s not useful, but that it needs to be interpreted with context.

EDIT CAVEAT: I'm going to caveat my reaction on you putting together that breakdown. I'd love to see it and it would be useful in this discussion of "how often are people actually in non-ownership, non-hospital employment", but I am reluctant about how it might get interpreted. It's important to remember that employment type proportions vary WILDLY across the US. The proportions in New Mexico are unlikely to match proportions nationally. I worry that comparing the national proportions to New Mexico proportions as direct alternative estimates to be 100% compared for validity will be misleading and lead to potential unfounded mistrust. We can 100% look at it as a "hey, this is an indicator of what proportions in New Mexico may be", we cannot look at it as "hey, this doesn't match the national proportions, they're wrong".

As a further note on this, the sample is not powered to give precise estimates of these employment type breakdowns at the state level. We would need way more responses or way more outside data to do so. You will not see anything in the outputs from it that say "New Mexico has X% of podiatrists in sole practice". You might see something like that heavily heavily caveated among summary statistics, or you might see a more complex modeled result down the line using more complicated statistical methods and outside sources, or you might see something like "The US has X to X% of podiatrists in sole practice", but we cannot say that the sample as-given is powered to give a representative sample at the individual state level for respondents from New Mexico.

SECONDARY CAVEAT (BECAUSE I CAN'T LEAVE WELL ENOUGH ALONE): I will say, if I had something like that breakdown for New Mexico, with the ability to ground truth the classifications, that could be useful in roughly imputing (estimating at missing values) results for New Mexico for people who did not respond based on statistical relationships within the overall data. Not an "ask" or anything, just a thought on how something like that might be responsibly applied to improve our collective understanding of the profession.

Warmly,
Sam
 
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Adam Smasher said:
Why is solo DPM a separate category from solo PC?

Why is a partnership of DPMs a separate category from group PC?

In a different thread we had a discussion about why the majority of physician practices are PCs, which is why BLS is unreliable because the W2 income will be artificially low. Why is this not bearing out in the survey data?
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"Why is solo DPM a separate category from solo PC?

Why is a partnership of DPMs a separate category from group PC?"

Do you mean in the PM bar chart that I put there? If so, couldn't tell you, that's not an APMA product, that would be a Podiatry Management question right there. I only included it as part of indicating that I can't find evidence (yet) of the sweeping 2/3 to 70%+ of podiatrists not being owners or hospital-employed figures.

So, regarding the BLS data, a huge proportion the population doesn't need to be flawed (inclusion of residents/exclusion of certain classes of self-employed people) for it to throw off the estimates unless accounted for. The excluded population of certain classes of self-employed DPMs could be relatively small but still throw things off. All of that is to say, the previous discussion didn't really address whether those PCs were the majority or not for sure. There's certainly a perception that they are here. Personally, I have no idea yet, but I'm trying to find actual numbers from other sources at the moment to support that. If they exist, great, let's find them, if they don't, then we should consider how accurate that concept is as a 100%-trusted ground-truthing mechanism.

I will say, if current proportions in the sample bear out and we get around half being in employed, not owner, not in hospital, that is STILL a big proportion and WAY more than I think would have been the case even 10 years ago. From having worked on these projects for a while now, I can tell you that an existing proportion of around half is enough that people will tend to psychologically perceive it as being higher than that. Is that always the case? No. Does it certainly happen? Absolutely.
Warmly,
Sam
 
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sdupre_apma said:
Do you mean in the PM bar chart that I put there? If so, couldn't tell you, that's not an APMA product, that would be a Podiatry Management question right there. I only included it as part of indicating that I can't find evidence (yet) of the sweeping 2/3 to 70%+ of podiatrists not being owners or hospital-employed figures.
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Sorry, I was glancing, I thought it was your preliminary data
 
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Retrograde_Nail said:
Misleading vague reply. Since we are talking numbers what percentage of podiatrists work in hospitals, ortho or MSG groups?

I would be willing to bet less than 30% of the profession does. The 30% is showing up and filling out the survey because they got something to gloat about.

Private practices are not handing out contracts to new associates even in the same ballpark as the avg salary listed on this survey site.
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For what it's worth, I like stat bro and appreciate the engagement here.

Perhaps I should clarify - I like how the app is set up. It's useful to see W2 vs 1099 vs K-1 and the other variables that are not as clear in other surveys.

They definitely do have a "submission bias" problem. I agree APMA and the like will see 300k as a really fantastic number and say we are all full of it (but they know the truth).
 
Retrograde_Nail said:
Misleading vague reply. Since we are talking numbers what percentage of podiatrists work in hospitals, ortho or MSG groups?

I would be willing to bet less than 30% of the profession does. The 30% is showing up and filling out the survey because they got something to gloat about.

Private practices are not handing out contracts to new associates even in the same ballpark as the avg salary listed on this survey site.
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Yes I would agree with you. There’s a reason why every hospital/msg/ortho job opening gets hundreds of applications..I’d wager it’s even less than 30%
 
Hybrocure said:
Yes I would agree with you. There’s a reason why every hospital/msg/ortho job opening gets hundreds of applications..I’d wager it’s even less than 30%
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Yes, correct.

I posted a MSG podiatry job publicly years ago (not even a great job, but still different from typical podiatry PP associate... 100+ apps in the first week). Terrible idea.... should have just kept asking within my network. It was a huge time suck filtering apps (many from residents out of state with no real intent of even visiting). Our job postings and offerings are so thin that any decent post which isn't clearly normal pod PP or supergroup gets BOMBED on with applicants. When I was in the job market, I've applied to many that were flooded or on hold for any more apps - days after posting.

The fact that even very mediocre VA hospital podiatry jobs get 100+ apps and DPM jobs at good hospitals or PSLF-elgible get 300-500+ apps says all we need to know.

I will do NMex breakdown when I can, but I think there are roughly 5 of 50+ state DPMs are real hospital employed (and some of those are new via create-a-job this year) and then 2 or 3 pods at VA. We'll see.

sdupre_apma said:
... it won’t add up to the same state license totals when aggregated to the state level. My twin is a DO with licenses in NJ and PA, my wife is a therapist with licenses in KY and MD. The licensing info super overestimates numbers because of people with multiple licenses. Not to say it’s not useful, but that it needs to be interpreted with context. ...
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Yes, I plan to just go down the state med board list... I know where at least half are working as it's a pretty small place (if I run into a name I don't know on the license list, look them up to see employ type... or toss them if not working in state). The VA NMex might be wacky if they hold a license from another state, but I think I know most/all pods there (not many).

Your major problem will be the VA hospitals... and those are nearly half of DPM "hospital jobs." For the VA and IHS jobs, they can hold whatever license they choose (ie, Cali VA podiatrist can hold NY license... no CA license), so many of them get whatever is cheapest or easiest. That's something to be aware of... VA docs for MD/DO are so few it barely matters percent-wise, but for DPMs, it's sizeable.

Retrograde_Nail said:
Misleading vague reply. Since we are talking numbers what percentage of podiatrists work in hospitals, ortho or MSG groups?

I would be willing to bet less than 30% of the profession does. The 30% is showing up and filling out the survey because they got something to gloat about.

Private practices are not handing out contracts to new associates even in the same ballpark as the avg salary listed on this survey site.
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100%.

It's the same as Deanarino trying to say MGMA is "those numbers are average."
If you over-represent a small portion of the profession (RRA cert, hospital employed, PP owner/partner, etc), the numbers will get skewed... but again, isn't that the likely goal from the start? 🙂

You'd have the opposite if you preferentially encouraged mobile pods or non-owners (associates) or grads from VA residency or whatever... numbers would be lower than real. (but they don't want do do a survey to brag about their $120k no bonus no benefits).
 
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Stormblest said:
Don’t forget about IHS pods in NM, I know there are a few out there.
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Yeah, good call... I know them all (or at least know of them)... a few are totally non-op, most minimal surg, some RRA. They also have locums at some places.

IHS and VA should really list docs like any normal hospital does, but they have no marketing/legal reason to do so (the patients have basically no free will.. trapped in the bubble). The CV/training/boards of a lot of IHS docs is also fairly unsalable... it'd honestly be a feast for the attorneys in the area.

I worked on the AZ side of "the nation" for a couple years, so I can find out if there have been any changes. Gallup hired a couple around when I left. They will be a bit tricky as they're licensed in other states (but I have IHS nationwide directories that'll still be mostly accurate).

It is funny how DPMs kinda covet jobs that MD/DOs view as last resort. VA/IHS is where MD/DO might go if they want loan forgive or had serious license sanctions or malpractice or failed boards... but for pods, it's a constant top option and pretty good pay. 🙂
 
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Feli said:
Yeah, good call... I know them all (or at least know of them)... a few are totally non-op, most minimal surg, some RRA. They also have locums at some places.

IHS and VA should really list docs like any normal hospital does, but they have no marketing/legal reason to do so (the patients have basically no free will.. trapped in the bubble). The CV/training/boards of a lot of IHS docs is also fairly unsalable... it'd honestly be a feast for the attorneys in the area.

I worked on the AZ side of "the nation" for a couple years, so I can find out if there have been any changes. Gallup hired a couple around when I left. They will be a bit tricky as they're licensed in other states (but I have IHS nationwide directories that'll still be mostly accurate).

It is funny how DPMs kinda covet jobs that MD/DOs view as last resort. VA/IHS is where MD/DO might go if they want loan forgive or had serious license sanctions or malpractice or failed boards... but for pods, it's a constant top option and pretty good pay. 🙂
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Yeah from what I’ve heard IHS jobs also get flooded with applications just like the VA does
 
Feli said:
Yeah, good call... I know them all (or at least know of them)... a few are totally non-op, most minimal surg, some RRA. They also have locums at some places.

IHS and VA should really list docs like any normal hospital does, but they have no marketing/legal reason to do so (the patients have basically no free will.. trapped in the bubble). The CV/training/boards of a lot of IHS docs is also fairly unsalable... it'd honestly be a feast for the attorneys in the area.

I worked on the AZ side of "the nation" for a couple years, so I can find out if there have been any changes. Gallup hired a couple around when I left. They will be a bit tricky as they're licensed in other states (but I have IHS nationwide directories that'll still be mostly accurate).

It is funny how DPMs kinda covet jobs that MD/DOs view as last resort. VA/IHS is where MD/DO might go if they want loan forgive or had serious license sanctions or malpractice or failed boards... but for pods, it's a constant top option and pretty good pay. 🙂
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Since we are talking about VA podiatrists I could have sworn all the VA podiatrist salaries are publicly listed.

Marit health should be importing that data into the survey as well
 
Side note, you've all got me curious. I'm doing a quick dive to check how many DPMs are currently employed with the main supergroups over the next few days. Quick and dirty counts to come.

EDIT: To go with this, let me know if there are any particular supergroups you'd like to see included. Right now I'm looking at:
UpperLine Health (inc. Village Podiatry
Balance Health (inc. Weil Group)
FASMA/USFAS
Beyond Podiatry
HealthDrive
 
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sdupre_apma said:
Side note, you've all got me curious. I'm doing a quick dive to check how many DPMs are currently employed with the main supergroups over the next few days. Quick and dirty counts to come.

EDIT: To go with this, let me know if there are any particular supergroups you'd like to see included. Right now I'm looking at:
UpperLine Health (inc. Village Podiatry
Balance Health (inc. Weil Group)
FASMA/USFAS
Beyond Podiatry
HealthDrive
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If you're adding mobile work,360Care and KG Health partners
 
sdupre_apma said:
Side note, you've all got me curious. I'm doing a quick dive to check how many DPMs are currently employed with the main supergroups over the next few days. Quick and dirty counts to come.

EDIT: To go with this, let me know if there are any particular supergroups you'd like to see included. Right now I'm looking at:
UpperLine Health (inc. Village Podiatry
Balance Health (inc. Weil Group)
FASMA/USFAS
Beyond Podiatry
HealthDrive
Click to expand...
Curalta
 
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More supergroups with dozens and dozens of DPMs and multiple states would be:
Evolve Health (Modern Foot and Ankle)
footandankle.us
InStride FAS

...and then, after supergroups, you have a whooole lot of podiatry groups that are very large with many offices and 10+ pods and one/few owner... but not PE owned (at this time). These are how most of the supergroups like Village or UpperLine or Evolve or InStride started (buying large and medium pod groups). There are far too many of those large groups to even name. You have these in basically any metro city and even some medium cities. A few would be below, but there are at least 50 more similar 10+ doc private groups coast to coast:
FAS Southeast Michigan
Northern Illinois FAS
FLPodiatrist

This list will continue to grow and grow.
These podiatry VC supergroups (dozens to hundreds of pods employed) will be the most common DPM employers - if they are not largest DPM employer already.
For now, I would suspect that normal 2-10+ podiatrists in privately owned office groups remain in the lead by a slight margin nationwide. They were largest portion of the practicing DPM employer pie bar none 10+ years ago ... but most of them will continue to gradually sell out to the PE supergroups at some point (less commonly to hospitals, ie Novant in NC).

And whether a DPM associate is technically working for supergroup podiatry or just large group without VC funds, both of those employ types easily eclipse MSG and hospital-employ or solo office status for podiatrists overall. That is for sure.
 
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Retrograde_Nail said:
The number of respondents makes up about five percent of practicing podiatrists. I don’t get it. Misinformation
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How is it misinformation? It's a representative sample size. You're never going to get 100%.

The real question is who is in the sample, but ACFAS broke it down by practice type to give you more information. For example, the VA-employed podiatrists averaged far lower at $263k.

I know there are bad jobs out there. I see them offered to residents. I steer them away from those jobs.

The ongoing Marit survey and this ACFAS report are far larger than the sample sizes in MGMA (and AAMC). We should be applauding these studies and using them to negotiate.
 
diabeticfootdr said:
How is it misinformation? It's a representative sample size. You're never going to get 100%.

The real question is who is in the sample, but ACFAS broke it down by practice type to give you more information. For example, the VA-employed podiatrists averaged far lower at $263k.

I know there are bad jobs out there. I see them offered to residents. I steer them away from those jobs.

The ongoing Marit survey and this ACFAS report are far larger than the sample sizes in MGMA (and AAMC). We should be applauding these studies and using them to negotiate.
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Do you know roughly how many ACFAS fellows there are off the top of your head? Curious what proportion of the underlying statistical universe this covers, but not near my work computer.
 
Well, it's ACFAS fellows, meaning people who are already board certified by ABFAS and already well along in their career. Also probably an overrepresentation of hospital employed DPMs.

Speaking of selection bias, I have a really meta question for @sdupre_apma : do you think survey-takers are a representative sample of any given income survey? In other words, you have a sub-population of DPMs (or plumbers or barbers or statisticians etc) that is more conscientious than the general population, and because of that they self-select into filling out the survey. But because they're more conscientious than their peers, this also translates into career success and higher income. So they upwardly bias the survey outcome in the process. Is this a significant effect?
 
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