Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2014

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Always real interesting reports. I have to wonder though, when they ask for docs to report if they feel fairly compensated... do you think some docs choose "no" because they feel they make too much? They present the data as though they all feel underpaid. The median salary for the orthos is 412k/year, (almost double the average doc, and 8 times larger than the US median salary) yet 55% feel they are "unfairly compensated".

I gotta assume that SOME of them answered that their pay was "unfair" because they are feeling overpaid.
 
It's all relevant... $412k a year might seem underpaid if your working you butt off
 
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Path and radiology take another hit on top of poor job market.

And I guess these surveys include academic medicine too? 188k for internal medicine? Hospitalist can easily get 230k plus jobs.
 
These medscape surveys are known to be grossly flawed. Last year they had ortho with a ~30% increase in pay, which is laughably ridiculous.
 
Also this could purely be salary and not including benefits


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Poliscidoc said:
Also this could purely be salary and not including benefits


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ignore spelling and/or grammar
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Sounds like some benefits are included, at least. It seems like academic and outpatient clinicians are dragging down the averages (slide 7).

"Earnings are for full-time work only. They include salary, bonus, and profit-sharing contributions. For partners, these are earnings after taxes and deductible business expenses but before income tax. "
 
I believe these Medscape surveys are self-reported by individual physicians, unlike MGMA and some other salary benchmarking companies, which use data reported from management, medical directors, etc.

Physicians know this salary report is made widely available to the public and is the most frequently quoted by popular media like Forbes and the NY Times, so I wouldn't be surprised if some physicians low ball their own salary in reporting or if there is some self-selection in who responds to these surveys where the top income earners withhold or are more secretive with their income information while lower income earners are freer with this information because they want the world to know how "underpaid" they are.

It in no way benefits physicians for the public to think they are overcompensated. I think physicians know this and it plays into this survey. I would suspect that a higher proportion of salaried physicians respond to this survey, and we all know salaried physicians tend to make significantly less. If you really want to know how much the average physician is taking home in each specialty, as well as the 10%, 25%, 75%, and 90%tiles, go look at the MGMA data. This information is less available to the public and is more forthright.
 
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johnamo said:
Sounds like some benefits are included, at least. It seems like academic and outpatient clinicians are dragging down the averages (slide 7).

"Earnings are for full-time work only. They include salary, bonus, and profit-sharing contributions. For partners, these are earnings after taxes and deductible business expenses but before income tax. "
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I don't think any benefits are included, at least not in the traditional definition of benefits which includes medical, dental, disability, malpractice, and life insurance, retirement contributions, and coverage for dependents among other things. Salary, bonuses, and profit-sharing would not be considered benefits, they are straight income.
 
I find the job satisfaction statistics more interesting than compensation (especially considering the likelihood of a fluctuating market throughout time). Although, I think it tells more about the people in a chosen field than the intrinsic nature of the specialty itself, but it's still interesting.
 
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Dharma said:
I find the job satisfaction statistics more interesting than compensation (especially considering the likelihood of a fluctuating market throughout time). Although, I think it tells more about the people in a chosen field than the intrinsic nature of the specialty itself, but it's still interesting.
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I agree. I think it's useful to look at the outliers. Dermatology=no regret. IM & FM=regret. IM was 19% last year. Ouch! Everything else is in between.
 
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Dharma said:
I find the job satisfaction statistics more interesting than compensation (especially considering the likelihood of a fluctuating market throughout time). Although, I think it tells more about the people in a chosen field than the intrinsic nature of the specialty itself, but it's still interesting.
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Agreed. It also seems that the proportion of doctors within a given specialty who would choose medicine again seems to be inversely related to the proportion who would choose that specialty again. Interesting.
 
a runner said:
I agree. I think it's useful to look at the outliers. Dermatology=no regret. IM & FM=regret. IM was 19% last year. Ouch! Everything else is in between.
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It's interseting that IM has the highest percentage of people that would still choose medicine, but the lowest percentage that would choose their specialty again.
 
EMDO2018 said:
Path and radiology take another hit on top of poor job market.

And I guess these surveys include academic medicine too? 188k for internal medicine? Hospitalist can easily get 230k plus jobs.
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....Not in my area of the country. Not at all. The hospitalists here talk covetously about jobs hours away that pay 200K for hospitalists without residents. I know the northeast is the single worst paying region of the country and other areas could expect up to a 33 (maybe even more)% rise in income over them... but still. It seems like even in the most ideal of regions 230K+ hospitalist jobs are "uncommon" territory. Far from impossible, but definitely not the median.

But I have never been in those areas. Maybe I'm off. Its hard to assess incomes in other areas since only medscape really regularly conglomerates this info, and people always voice a lot of suspicion over their findings.
 
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a runner said:
I believe these Medscape surveys are self-reported by individual physicians, unlike MGMA and some other salary benchmarking companies, which use data reported from management, medical directors, etc.
If you really want to know how much the average physician is taking home in each specialty, as well as the 10%, 25%, 75%, and 90%tiles, go look at the MGMA data. This information is less available to the public and is more forthright.
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Anyone have any recent MGMA report data? I know the 2010 version was floating around here a while back.
 
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RoyalMule said:
It's interseting that IM has the highest percentage of people that would still choose medicine, but the lowest percentage that would choose their specialty again.
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The grass is always greener… but I guess they think theirs is brown? Paradise City baby!
 
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DocEspana said:
....Not in my area of the country. Not at all. The hospitalists here talk covetously about jobs hours away that pay 200K for hospitalists without residents. I know the northeast is the single worst paying region of the country and other areas could expect up to a 33 (maybe even more)% rise in income over them... but still. It seems like even in the most ideal of regions 230K+ hospitalist jobs are "uncommon" territory. Far from impossible, but definitely not the median.

But I have never been in those areas. Maybe I'm off. Its hard to assess incomes in other areas since only medscape really regularly conglomerates this info, and people always voice a lot of suspicion over their findings.
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You can always move to the South or Midwest. :rolleyes:
 
a runner said:
I agree. I think it's useful to look at the outliers. Dermatology=no regret. IM & FM=regret. IM was 19% last year. Ouch! Everything else is in between.
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Yup:

HappinessFactorChart-532x630.png
 
postbacpremed87 said:
I have always wondered the difference between Cardiology - Invasive and Surgeon - Cardiovascular?

They have non-invasive; invasive; interventional; and then cardiovascular (some other surveys say cardiothoracic).
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Cardiovascular used to be the term given to general surgeons who did cardio and vascular surgeries back in the day. They weren't board-certified CT surgeons. Therefore, I'm not sure why the report has this term instead of "cardiothoracic surgery".

In regards to invasive vs. interventional, I remember reading on sdn that invasive refers to general cardiologists who perform some invasive procedures. On the other hand, interventional cardiologists have received an additional year of sub-fellowship training.
 
TheWeeIceMan said:
lol, maybe it's the only way that they can keep people from throwing up when they see what 4 years will cost them.
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You know it's bad when they put a disclaimer: Completion of a program of study at Midwestern University does not guarantee placement in a residency program or future employment, licensure or credentialing.
 
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I thought psych was in the 230k+. I guess it will take me more than 10 years to pay back that loan. Yikes!
 
BestDoctorEver said:
I thought psych was in the 230k+. I guess it will take me more than 10 years to pay back that loan. Yikes!
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That's doable in psych. Hope its that way 8 years in the future.
 
Medscape numbers are trash. If you look at it on a specialty basis, they often have large numbers of respondents with salaries <$100k/year aka part-timers or fellows or something.

edit: I guess for 2014, Medscape decided to remove the salary distribution for each speciality. I know this data existed for 2012 and 2013. They always had 5-10% of respondents reporting <$100k/year, which seriously skews their data e.g. Medscape data showing anesthesiologists making $330k/year while MGMA has them at $440k/year.


edit2:
http://www.medscape.com/features/slideshow/compensation/2013/anesthesiology#2
 
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circulus vitios said:
Medscape numbers are trash. If you look at it on a specialty basis, they often have large numbers of respondents with salaries <$100k/year aka part-timers or fellows or something.

edit: I guess for 2014, Medscape decided to remove the salary distribution for each speciality. I know this data existed for 2012 and 2013. They always had 5-10% of respondents reporting <$100k/year, which seriously skews their data e.g. Medscape data showing anesthesiologists making $330k/year while MGMA has them at $440k/year.


edit2:
http://www.medscape.com/features/slideshow/compensation/2013/anesthesiology#2
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they survey military and academic docs who have way lower pay.
 
circulus vitios said:
Medscape numbers are trash. If you look at it on a specialty basis, they often have large numbers of respondents with salaries <$100k/year aka part-timers or fellows or something.
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Is the discrepancy as big as 50k-75k like an above poster said? My mentor (an internist) told me he has been making 300k+. He is the medical director job of a nursing home as well besides having his own practice...
 
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RoyalMule said:
It's interseting that IM has the highest percentage of people that would still choose medicine, but the lowest percentage that would choose their specialty again.
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It's cuz they mirin dat derm.
 
user3 said:
I'm surprised to see anes so high. Looking through their forum, they seem to be expecting massive salary decreases as PP groups get bought out by AMG's, encroachment from CRNA's worsens, and healthcare possibly moves towards CMS single payer (which reimburses anesthesia poorly compared to other specialties).
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That's not very high for anesthesia. The ones I know are making 400+, and it's not uncommon. I think those days are over though, and by the time we get there, gas docs will be making what you see in the medscape survey.
 
DocEspana said:
....Not in my area of the country. Not at all. The hospitalists here talk covetously about jobs hours away that pay 200K for hospitalists without residents. I know the northeast is the single worst paying region of the country and other areas could expect up to a 33 (maybe even more)% rise in income over them... but still. It seems like even in the most ideal of regions 230K+ hospitalist jobs are "uncommon" territory. Far from impossible, but definitely not the median.

But I have never been in those areas. Maybe I'm off. Its hard to assess incomes in other areas since only medscape really regularly conglomerates this info, and people always voice a lot of suspicion over their findings.
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Today's Hospitalist also does a salary survey and their 2013 report (based on 2012 data) puts the Northeast region mean at $229k and the national IM hospitalist mean at $252k. MGMA 2013 (2012 data) also shows a national median of $240k for all IM hospitalists. And this is "old" data because hospitalist salaries have consistently been going up at least 5% every year for the past several years.

According to MGMA data, IM hospitalists in regions 1 & 2 (northeast region) usually make about $25k less than the national median. Maybe the salaries in New York City are lower than the rest of the Northeast, but the NE as a whole definitely pays most IM hospitalists well over $200k according to the more reliable data.
 
circulus vitios said:
Look at it for yourself.

http://murdockconsultingmd.com/blog/view/mgma-2012-primary-care-comp-survey
http://www.medscape.com/features/slideshow/compensation/2014/public/overview
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You realize MCMD is *not * considered a good measurement of incomes for the very reasons others erroneously attributed to medscape. Their sample size sucks and their polling method is known to be non-random (in this case, biased toward clients who have taken jobs through their better-than-average job acquisition firm).

That is an advertisement for their services and shoild not in any way be construed for anything except the average income *they* acquire for physicians. Plus its only about 10,500 people compared to >24,000 for medscape.

Sorry to burst your bubble kids, but medscape is basically the reality.
 
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Of note: there are certain groups who have done extensive study of subgroups of medicine (like internist today, above). Findings vary, but I haven't seen anything that contradicts the medscape findings. If you find some of those to pass muster for study quality then feel free to lean on those, medscape is not without flaw but its like criticising statin drugs. You can do it, and in certain situations you're right to, but 90% of the time its the gold standard because its the only halfway decent option out there.
 
DocEspana said:
You realize MCMD is *not * considered a good measurement of incomes for the very reasons others erroneously attributed to medscape. Their sample size sucks and their polling method is known to be non-random (in this case, biased toward clients who have taken jobs through their better-than-average job acquisition firm).

That is an advertisement for their services and shoild not in any way be construed for anything except the average income *they* acquire for physicians. Plus its only about 10,500 people compared to >24,000 for medscape.

Sorry to burst your bubble kids, but medscape is basically the reality.
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AAMC had a page that compared a half dozen or so compensation surveys for a large number of specialties. In most cases, MGMA wasn't the outlier.

edit: AAMC also trusts MGMA data enough to use it for their Careers in Medicine page, which is endorsed by like every medical school in the United States.
 
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DocEspana said:
You realize MCMD is *not * considered a good measurement of incomes for the very reasons others erroneously attributed to medscape. Their sample size sucks and their polling method is known to be non-random (in this case, biased toward clients who have taken jobs through their better-than-average job acquisition firm).

That is an advertisement for their services and shoild not in any way be construed for anything except the average income *they* acquire for physicians. Plus its only about 10,500 people compared to >24,000 for medscape.

Sorry to burst your bubble kids, but medscape is basically the reality.
Click to expand...

Do you look at the links or even the names of the links before you post? It says MGMA right in the link name. MCMD is not giving *their* data, they are simply quoting specialty income data from MGMA, the largest, and arguably most reliable, physician compensation survey that exists. Do you know what MGMA is? They are not a consulting firm, they are a trade group. From a Modern Healthcare July 2012 article "The Englewood, Colo.-based professional membership association, a merger of the Medical Group Management Association and the American College of Medical Practice Executives, surveyed 2,913 organizations and 62,245 physicians in 174 positions/specialties."

I don't know where you got 10,500 from, but MGMA surveys more than double what Medscape does. 62,245! The next largest survey is from AMGA, another trade group, which surveys 49,400 physicians. AMGA and MGMA are generally very close to in line with each other, whereas Medscape is way off in left field. CMS even uses AMGA for benchmarking. Furthermore, most of their data is coming from medical group executives and management people (although some is self-reported), not the wholly self reported anonymous internet surveys Medscape does. You can believe Medscape is the reality though if you want.
 
The link was to the mgma specialty survey. I missed the word specialty. So it was only 10,000 data points. No IM, gen surg, FM, etc.

Sort of a bit embarrassing. But it's why I read the link word for word (except specialty, ironically) and assumed that the other poster was sloppy calling it MGMA rather than MCMD (the name of the website linked to)
 
DocEspana said:
The link was to the mgma specialty survey. I missed the word specialty. So it was only 10,000 data points. No IM, gen surg, FM, etc.

Sort of a bit embarrassing. But it's why I read the link word for word (except specialty, ironically) and assumed that the other poster was sloppy calling it MGMA rather than MCMD (the name of the website linked to)
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That's ok, we all misread stuff. I'm just trying to make the point that Medscape data really isn't that reliable. It's probably most accurate for employed positions and academics and the like, which is where the future of salaries might be heading anyways. But as for now, I would say that MGMA and AMGA data is where you want to go for the most accurate data. MGMA even breaks things down by region and percentile levels if you can get your hands on recent copies. Of course it means nothing for the median salary for a specialty to be, say $400k, if the only job you can find is an employee job paying $260k.
 
Should a physician negotiate his/her salary based on the MGMA survey when getting a job offer?
 
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Why is physiatry never represented in the medscape report?
 
DocEspana said:
You should negotiate any job offer ever. And base it on what you want and what your attorney suggests is normal for your area. Regional variance is a real thing.
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I haven't held a real job, and i'm only about to start med school, but i'm just curious is it standard practice to bring an attorney when getting your first job out of residency?
 
TopTomato said:
I haven't held a real job, and i'm only about to start med school, but i'm just curious is it standard practice to bring an attorney when getting your first job out of residency?
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Standard practice to have it looked over by an attorney. Standard to negotiate for more. A bit more rare to actually SEND the attorney.
 
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