Pathologist Salary Snapshot 2023

[Iceman24]

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Champaign County Coroner is seeking a BC/BE Forensic Pathologist to join their dynamic team in Urbana, Illinois.

The Opportunity - Design your dream schedule with part-time and full-time options available -

Choose your compensation structure: Salaried with benefits or contracted to be paid per autopsy ($1,200 per autopsy) - Collegial and collaborative team approach working alongside the elected county coroner -

Proven earning potential of 444K+ - Come home and stay home every night with no in person call requirements Requirements - BC/BE in Forensic Pathology - Ability to acquire IL licensure The Community - Home to the University of Illinois, offering a diverse community with a rich cultural scene - Spend the day at the Urbana Farmers Market shopping for fresh produce, artisanal goods, and more - Kick back and relax at the Crystal Lake Park or enjoy outdoor activities such as fishing, picnicking, paddle boating, and more - Low crime rates and a cost of living 12% lower than the national average For more information, contact: Cori Centerino, Senior Search Consultant Call/Text: 314-788-6862 Email: [email protected] Schedule a call directly: Cori Centerino

Let me translate that verbiage for you, little surgpath bro gold digger.

444 divided by 1200 means you will do 370 cases per year which is is 1.5 FTE as per NAME recommendations, so 296K per 1 FTE. No benefits, no pension, no insurance.
Coroner jurisdiction means you will have no control over selection of cases, death certificates, and office operations.
Your supervisor most likely will be local coroner with an associate degree and overinflated ego.
All of that is frosted with Midwest middle of the nowhere small town vibes.

You are welcome.

 

[dr4n6]

Let me translate that verbiage for you, little surgpath bro gold digger.

444 divided by 1200 means you will do 370 cases per year which is is 1.5 FTE as per NAME recommendations, so 296K per 1 FTE. No benefits, no pension, no insurance.
Coroner jurisdiction means you will have no control over selection of cases, death certificates, and office operations.
Your supervisor most likely will be local coroner with an associate degree and overinflated ego.
All of that is frosted with Midwest middle of the nowhere small town vibes.

You are welcome.

Iceman24 is 100% spot on with his translation, as above. NAME recommendations are that a pathologist max out at 250 cases/year. Having previously worked in a coronial system, these sort of jurisdictions are a recipe for disaster. Bottom line is that the above job is one best avoided.

 

[shikimate]

lol I never understood the rationale for the coroner system. Some places has family physicians as coroners, which is good because they understand the pathology report. Other places has retired police, firefighters or even medical receptionists as coroners, and I don't know how they can read a pathology report.

 

[KeratinPearls]

Let me translate that verbiage for you, little surgpath bro gold digger.

444 divided by 1200 means you will do 370 cases per year which is is 1.5 FTE as per NAME recommendations, so 296K per 1 FTE. No benefits, no pension, no insurance.
Coroner jurisdiction means you will have no control over selection of cases, death certificates, and office operations.
Your supervisor most likely will be local coroner with an associate degree and overinflated ego.
All of that is frosted with Midwest middle of the nowhere small town vibes.

You are welcome.

Little surgpath gold digger? If it makes you a bigger man to call someone little then go for it.

“Gold digger”? Everyone and their mom talks about salary on SDN and Reddit if you haven’t realized it yet, so I guess we all are “gold diggers” except for you. I actually earn my income through hard work so I guess you really can’t label me as a “gold digger”.

 

[coroner]

Let me translate that verbiage for you, little surgpath bro gold digger.

You are welcome.

Little surgpath gold digger? If it makes you a bigger man to call someone little then go for it.

 

[coroner]

I can relate to this. We have 10FTE and my idea was 5 people do 2 week on, 5 people do 2 week off kinda thing, so yes, 5 people work like a beast for 2 weeks and maybe spend 2-4 days catching up, but then everyone can have at least a week off per month. I thought this was brilliant idea but the old **** in the group just laughed it off lol. These old **** are the kind that still rely on secretary to type their report and consultation letters!

My ideal setup would be a 4 person community hospital rotating 2 people at a time, so basically everyone work 6 months with 6 months off.

This is what I'm taking about. Unless it's an academic BST job, I see no reason why a typical pathologist can't sign out 4k specimens in 6-8 months and spend the rest of the year in Bali.

Rads, EM, and hospitalists have long ago shifted to creative scheduling with significant time off. The only reason path doesn't follow suit is because our culture is so sclerotic/traditional that we can't advocate for ourselves. But modernizing our schedules and taking advantage of the insane benefit of indirect pt care should also help improve path applicant quality. If med students knew they could practice 2 weeks on 1 week off in path, it would for sure improve recruitment.

Extremely few full-time jobs are structured as such in pathology. But to both of your points, there are practices where they could alter the schedules to get significantly more time off, but some adhere to how things have always been like anything that requires change a lot of people are resistant to it. Others have the herd mentality that everyone work equally as hard and mint as much money as possible.

As far as why this is extremely rare in pathology is for a number of reasons other than those above: For starters, the work one could manageably do to earn an ideal to comfortable physician income from working in the "half-off" model essentially cuts their income in half as well. Think about it, if someone could earn $300K by "hustling" over a period of 6 months and live the rest of the year in Bali, most doctors would rather opt to hustle the entire year and earn $600K. than. Also, the volume that would be most conducive to this model would be generating as many RVUs/CPT codes as possible i.e. quick 88304s and 88305s. A bx. heavy service (>75%) which cranks out enough CPT codes to earn that ideal income in that "half-off" model, with a good payor mix and pathologists getting full reimbursement for the professional component are not easy to come by. And for the ones that do, again most pathologists would not prefer 12-26 weeks off for lower pay. Therefore, the expectations for whomever they hire is that everybody gets the same standard of vacation by working full time.

Lastly, the decision for such creative scheduling is up to fewer pathologists these days. This type of scheduling is for the most part only possible in private practice where the docs can figure out how hard they want to work, how many partners they want to hire, and how much money they want to make. As we all know, private groups have been dwindling and more and more doctors in general (not just pathologists) are becoming employed and being able to choose to such flexible scheduling with significant time off is not up to them. If someone wanted this much time off in path, the closest they could get is either working part time or locums.

 

[Guest8]

Even if I could have 26 weeks off a year, my spouse doesn't have that much time off. Nor does anyone I know that I'd like to spend time with. So I'd sit on my rear watching TV for 20 weeks a year. Or I could just work, which I don't mind at all. I don't even end up using the full 8 weeks off I currently get.

 

[shikimate]

Certainly good points in the replies above. More and more physician jobs in Canada are employee model too. It's partially grad preference (less hassle with paperwork, lack of business knowledge etc), but also related to difficult business environment (onerous labour law, expensive real estate, etc).
Related to another point above, around 2013 Ontario government slashed physician fee for service schedule in order to control physician compensation, but overall compensation did not really change. This shows physicians will just work more to make up for the loss in income. I think part of it may be lifestyle inflation, if someone is used to spending 20K a month, then it's hard for them to live frugally again.

 

[WEBB PINKERTON]

Even if I could have 26 weeks off a year, my spouse doesn't have that much time off. Nor does anyone I know that I'd like to spend time with. So I'd sit on my rear watching TV for 20 weeks a year. Or I could just work, which I don't mind at all. I don't even end up using the full 8 weeks off I currently get.

Use that time to get side hustles. Pathology is great that you can have lot of free time to pursue other opportunities.

 

[ScubaV]

Even if I could have 26 weeks off a year, my spouse doesn't have that much time off. Nor does anyone I know that I'd like to spend time with. So I'd sit on my rear watching TV for 20 weeks a year. Or I could just work, which I don't mind at all. I don't even end up using the full 8 weeks off I currently get.

Forget businesses that require startup capital, I would spend those 26 weeks prepping a slick campaign for hot new cryptocurrency and then unveil right as Bitcoin starts another upcycle.

Maybe PathCoin, HematoxCoin, or 40xScopeCoin. Name needs work, but that's for 25 of the 26 weeks.

 

[octopusprime]

I think part of the attractiveness of pathology for many folks is lifestyle...it's known to be fairly bankers hours without call and weekends. We could probably structure our group to be BTTW for 1 month, then take a month off, but most like the flexibility of a slow day of casual work that is lower stress than high-volume, high stress. Also for small groups (5-15 people) it would be hard to divide up the time off...everyone wants big breaks in the summer and cares less about Sept-May (also because lots of younger docs with kids in school).
I have rads friends that do 16-20 weeks of vaca but when they're working, they're working like dogs, including weekends and overnights, and most are required to take a call a week at a time and request it well in advance.

 

[TrojanRaggy]

Certainly good points in the replies above. More and more physician jobs in Canada are employee model too. It's partially grad preference (less hassle with paperwork, lack of business knowledge etc), but also related to difficult business environment (onerous labour law, expensive real estate, etc).
Related to another point above, around 2013 Ontario government slashed physician fee for service schedule in order to control physician compensation, but overall compensation did not really change. This shows physicians will just work more to make up for the loss in income. I think part of it may be lifestyle inflation, if someone is used to spending 20K a month, then it's hard for them to live frugally again.

Don't forget HOOPP comes with employee model! I wonder if there is any pension plan as robust as HOOPP in the US...

 

[KeratinPearls]

www.marithealth.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathology/s/mHJOHbaXYN

A group on Reddit asked a bunch of physicians across all specialties to enter income info. There were only 50 some respondents for pathology.

Here’s the post:

Pathology Salary Estimates

Update 2/6/25 - Given the strong interest by the community in this data, we have now moved this resource to a more robust and secure website.

Everything else remains the same - 100% community powered, always free. Just take a min to [add your salary anonymously](https://www.marithealth.com/auth/new-user?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=vs-post) to unlock all salaries. And please continue spreading the word, so we can create the most comprehensive and robust salary dataset for ourselves


Hey everyone! A couple of weeks back, I had shared the anonymous salary sharing form [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathology/comments/1g596vf/anonymous_salary_sharing/), and it’s been awesome to see the response. We have \~25 FT salary contributions already, with all the rich details like shifts, hours, and benefits, and the data is now really starting to take shape. I put together a quick summary of averages to how it looks. The good news is the community powered average is close to other salary benchmarks out there, but now with our data - we can look much deeper into shifts, benefits, etc and into individual contributions.

**Community Powered Salary Average** \- $328k (Avg Base = $305k, Bonus = $23k)
**Other Benchmarks** \- Doximity - $360k, Medscape - $348k, MGMA - ??

Salaries range from $210k on the lowest end to $525k at the highest end. If you haven't contributed and don't have access to the salary sheet - you can [share your salary here](https://marit.fillout.com/t/vfyw8PEHj2us) to see the full data-set. And if you are a student and need access, please DM me

Thoughts on the numbers? Do they look reasonable so far?

 

[coroner]

**Other Benchmarks** \- Doximity - $360k, Medscape - $348k, MGMA - ??

MGMA 50th %ile: $390K

 

[wholeheartedly]

From Anonymous:

Midwest, rural community hospital, employee, $425k, 8 weeks vacation, 4000-5000 load/year, 401k.

 

[ChicagoPath]

Higher earners will only post here. You won’t see many academics making 250K 4 weeks of vacation in high cost of living areas post here (talked to a friend today and that’s what he’s getting). He has only 1-2 years experience however. He also mentioned the job market is saturated near him and big hospitals are buying up the smaller hospitals.

Another academic place I know is 250 as well and high volume.

 

[KeratinPearls]

Higher earners will only post here. You won’t see many academics making 250K 4 weeks of vacation in high cost of living areas post here (talked to a friend today and that’s what he’s getting). He has only 1-2 years experience however. He also mentioned the job market is saturated near him and big hospitals are buying up the smaller hospitals.

Another academic place I know is 250 as well and high volume.

You’re basically middle class living with those wages nowadays in high cost of living areas. I feel bad for the people that take these jobs. You’re just getting used by your employer.

4 weeks of vacation? That’s as much as residents and fellows get.

 

[PathRes123]

From Anonymous:

Midwest, rural community hospital, employee, $425k, 8 weeks vacation, 4000-5000 load/year, 401k.

MGMA 50th %ile: $390K

What is MGMA 80th percentile?

Not able to understand how the job market can be so fragmented. That is excluding private partnerships and academics. How can some private practices pay 600k versus others <300k, in same or similar locations? Since the payors and rates are also the same. IOW, what determines if somebody will pay a recruit 600k vs 300k, assuming similar volume and broadly similar credentials?

 

[ChicagoPath]

What is MGMA 80th percentile?

Not able to understand how the job market can be so fragmented. That is excluding private partnerships and academics. How can some private practices pay 600k versus others <300k, in same or similar locations? Since the payors and rates are also the same. IOW, what determines if somebody will pay a recruit 600k vs 300k, assuming similar volume and broadly similar credentials?

No group is going to pay someone 600k out of fellowship with no experience. 600k prob after a few years (3-5 years) with partnership or maybe if you live in a less desirable area then you can get that salary sooner than later.

Plus every young pathologist should make sure you aren’t taken advantage of, like 5 years until partnership with no incremental increases in vacation or salary until partner, while the partners are making 600+ with 12 weeks vacation while you are slaving away at work looking at 30-40 cases a day.

I talked with my friend in the NYC and Long Island area today and he told me the job market is saturated there. Anyone can attest to this? So I guess there’s no shortage.

 

[KeratinPearls]

No group is going to pay someone 600k out of fellowship with no experience. 600k prob after a few years (3-5 years) with partnership or maybe if you live in a less desirable area then you can get that salary sooner than later.

Plus every young pathologist should make sure you aren’t taken advantage of, like 5 years until partnership with no incremental increases in vacation or salary until partner, while the partners are making 600+ with 12 weeks vacation while you are slaving away at work looking at 30-40 cases a day.

I talked with my friend in the NYC and Long Island area today and he told me the job market is saturated there. Anyone can attest to this? So I guess there’s no shortage.

Yeah make sure you don’t get exploited by the partners in the group.

In Pathology, from my own experience, the closer you are to large cities with the multitude of training programs, the higher the chance you will be exploited and get paid crap wages or even worse work for academia paying you crap for high volume.

The fewer job options you will have and you got to take what you can get. I wouldn’t want to be geographically restricted in pathology if you are looking for a good job.

Some of these large cities with HCOL are paying peanuts to pathologists like 200-250.

 

[PathRes123]

No group is going to pay someone 600k out of fellowship with no experience. 600k prob after a few years (3-5 years) with partnership or maybe if you live in a less desirable area then you can get that salary sooner than later.

Plus every young pathologist should make sure you aren’t taken advantage of, like 5 years until partnership with no incremental increases in vacation or salary until partner, while the partners are making 600+ with 12 weeks vacation while you are slaving away at work looking at 30-40 cases a day.

I talked with my friend in the NYC and Long Island area today and he told me the job market is saturated there. Anyone can attest to this? So I guess there’s no shortage.

Assuming the guy making 600k and the one making <300k are bringing in the same amount of payor reimbursement- why is it that such a wide delta exists? I can understand a 10, 20 or 30% difference- but >100%? Is the practice losing money on the 600k person? I am excluding private partnerships and academics because those are different business models.

 

[ChicagoPath]

Assuming the guy making 600k and the one making <300k are bringing in the same amount of payor reimbursement- why is it that such a wide delta exists? I can understand a 10, 20 or 30% difference- but >100%? Is the practice losing money on the 600k person? I am excluding private partnerships and academics because those are different business models.

What type of practice setting are you talking about?

The 600k guy is probably more experienced, signs out more cases or is a partner in a practice.

The equal revenue the <300 guy is generating is going into someone else’s pockets.

 

[octopusprime]

Income variations for PP come in the form of...
1.) volume & case distribution
2.) insurance contracts--payers can reimburse 2 different pathologists in different locations significantly more or less for the same CPT code, sometimes more than double depending on the code. And some payers suck, some are good.
3.) hospital contracts--not everyone has one or a good one
4.) own histo lab--not everyone has one or a good one
5.) dermpath and GI PP contracts--not everyone has one or a good one
6.) partnership status

Income variation for employed positions come in the form of MGMA negotiations, how financially well off your hospital is, and how easy it is for them to replace you. Two hospitals in the same metro can pay the same specialty, path or otherwise, wildly different amounts. You'd be surprised.