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Psychiatry MGMA Salaries 2025
Started by FatherPsychiatry
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Surely you're not getting this directly from MGMA? Those numbers are all far below the overall means and medians for general psychiatry I've seen from multiple sources, including MGMA. Almost every source will say the national average is >$300k, so unless they're including a significant number of part time docs in this I wouldn't put much stock in that. Makes me wonder if NPs are being included in that data if it's true...
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Yeah those seem pretty low. I live/work in the south and I see job postings regularly for 300. In my last year of residency (2018-2019) one of our academic inpatient attending said he was getting paid 190. Non academics are making substantially more than this typically.
The thing is you're looking at salary, but not total comp. Total comp even in 2022 MGMA data I have was 316k mean with 307k median, excluding academic. This was for work RVU median of 3720 or 75 $/rvu
Data is from Marit health, who claimed to be offering free MGMA 2025 data. Sounds like Marit is Fakingit. Unless they ARE including NP's ....
Hi there - this is Rob Anderson - the Anesthesiologist founder of Marit. This data on Marit is licensed from MGMA and represents 2025 benchmarks. We are looking into these specific numbers to make sure they are accurate.
Also, these snapshots on Marit are only meant to be for individual use by physicians, limited to their specialty, and NPI-verified. So, please do not share it publicly. You can use the "gift" feature in the app to share with others for free, so we can make sure it is accessed by verified users only
Hi - got it. I deleted the numbers. Yes, the numbers seem to be quite a bit off according to the replies here, so hopefully we can get some clarification. Appreciate it.
I will double down and say that I don’t believe any full time average below $250k. The only full time psychiatrists I know making less than that are at our neighboring academic center across town and attendings in their first year here (academic) who make $225k salary before getting switched to RVU based pay at the 12 month mark. Other than 1 person, all full time psychiatrists here make over $250k before benefits. 75-80% make over $300k before benefits. I know because my officemate is on our department’s finance committee.
I see these are deleted now but I agree with other posters, these numbers seem well below typical starting salaries I have seen. I am curious whether these numbers include part-time.
"Salary" if unspecified could also mix academic and non-academic sources. MGMA data typically provides these separately, as they are pretty different. Also, many physicians are paid through a Salary + productivity structure, where "total comp" is more reflective of actual money per month compared to "salary." I'm not sure how common a pure salary job is anyway compared to salary plus regular bonus structures.
For example, I'm currently salaried at "275" but have repeating "bonuses" and other compensation in my contract bringing my total comp (money in pocket) to a regular 335.
For example, I'm currently salaried at "275" but have repeating "bonuses" and other compensation in my contract bringing my total comp (money in pocket) to a regular 335.
Hey all - we looked into this, and it seems like the numbers mentioned above were Base Salary and not Total Comp, so it does not includes bonuses, etc. The Total Comp numbers are higher. I believe that is the main reason for discrepancy, but i'll let @FatherPsychiatry confirm.
And if you are a physician / APP - you can access the data on Marit directly as well for your own specialty. We are making it available alongside all the salary data on Marit for free.
And if you are a physician / APP - you can access the data on Marit directly as well for your own specialty. We are making it available alongside all the salary data on Marit for free.
To clarify, how would someone who is paid completely based off productivity be reported? Would that count as a base salary of 0 and being the average down?
Looking through MGMA's definitions, it seems like if someone is fully productivity based and there is no guaranteed base, it *might* be reported as 0. The definitions of their metrics are here
Practice Demographics
This resource is intended to serve as a guide for completing the MGMA 2018 Compensation and Production Survey with information on practice demographics.
For Marit salaries - if someone reports their salary on a pure productivity basis, we ask them what their annual productivity comp is and it is reported as base. And then bonuses would be other sources - such as quality bonuses, stipends, etc.
So, comparing total comp would be the best apples to apples comparison. Here's the link to Psychiatry data (both Marit salaries & MGMA snapshot) on Marit
Psychiatrist Salary (2026) - $351K Avg
Avg. Psychiatrist salary in the US is $351,337. Compare total comp, base pay, and wRVU data from verified clinicians plus unlock free MGMA benchmarks.
www.marithealth.com
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My academic salary was 95k for 0.5FTE; full time made 190k. So those lower salaries do exist (although I agree that outside of academia, it’s pretty rare to make less than 250k full time).
I think there's only one place that still does that low (they think they're the best, ahem) and I'd assumed they'd gone up! The MGMA salaries don't include academic places usually since those are in the AAMC salaries. So academic salaries would not lower the numbers.
Also bonuses and benefits etc are not part of the standard MGMA figures so that would not explain these figures which are lower than the past yrs. The last MGMA data I have is from 2021 where the median was not less than 260k anywhere and was over 300 for the south.
Other salary surveys indicate the current median for psychiatry is about 320k which sounds about right to me.
Marits website shows 338 or so for median now
www.marithealth.com
Psychiatrist Salary (2026) - $351K Avg
Avg. Psychiatrist salary in the US is $351,337. Compare total comp, base pay, and wRVU data from verified clinicians plus unlock free MGMA benchmarks.
www.marithealth.com
338 for total comp median sounds about right.
offered 160-180 in academics almost `10 years ago. Know of someone who did VA psych related work that i think was paying almost 270-300 if you include the bonuses and quality and hardly patient based. That really should be the floor imo in 2025! Psych Nps are getting 150k base comp after a few years in my area.
Yes and if your willing to work extra (wknds, calls, or have a side gig, collaborations) I think landing in the 400-500 range is very doable esp if your lucky to have the additional work be remote and it can still be lifestyle friendly.
I get that most people in psych and in gen z are not interested in even getting past the 32-35 clinical hours of actual patient care hours let alone pushing into the 40-60 range. I do have a few friends that have been pushing it and are around the 10 year mark who all plan to be going part time in the next 5 years cause they worked extra hard early and smartly (not by wknd inpt shifts or holiday call and being sleepless) and dumped it into like VOO which you can imagine has greatly amplified there already amplified income.
Nothing magical they did other than hard work and index investing. No one did live like a resident but most avoided luxury spending like new car or million dollar houses early on well at least until now when the compound growth has already turned into an avalanche.
This is the key. You don’t have to live in a shed in North Dakota and save 90% of your high 6-figure income to be set up for success, you just have to be reasonable about your lifestyle.
That $300k/yr that’s around median should be plenty to retire well for most if they can invest $60k/yr or more into the right accounts. That should be very doable unless one is living or retiring to a VHCOL area.
Fair enuf. I guess there is some push if you want to "done" by early 50s or sub 50s that will require more investment initially but if one is content working a fulll career maybe till 60 ish then yeah different ball game. Probably some ability to scale back too for the 60k investor once they get into the 50s as well.
For clarity are you counting employer matches and 401 deferral as the total 60k investments? Thats almost a given i would think since 15-20k is the free money employers give you when you get benefits.
Definitely a different equation if one wants to retire or move to minimal part time (<15 hrs/wk) after 10-15 years, but still the same concept of just living reasonably instead of living in a shed. If one wants to hustle and make $500k+/yr they could easily invest $150k/yr or more for 10 years and have a very solid nest egg. Even if they only take home $300k after taxes, $100k/yr is more than enough for most people to live off per year and that leaves $200k/yr to invest. That's $2mil after 10 years or $3mil after 15 years without accounting for any of the interest. Drop to PT or do some other work you enjoy for 5-10 more years so that nest egg can keep growing and hitting FIRE should be very easy. My point is just one doesn't have to live like a pauper off $30k/yr to set themselves up for success.
I am. Between my 2 retirements accounts and an HSA my employer contributes around $25k per year. I contribute 4% and my employer contributes 10%. Those will eventually scale to me not having to contribute and my employer contributing 18%. I get some other discounts and benefits through insurances as well. My "salary" before benefits and bonuses last year was around $265k. Between mortgage and all our other payments we spend around $8k-10k/mo depending on what we're doing and it's comfortable. We were able to pay for my wife's master's degree oop last year and still have plenty to invest at least $50k. This is me working what is basically a 3 on 1 off schedule, so comfortable in terms of my work load as well.
If someone is hustling and pouring 200k per year into investments or 16k ish a month they have 2.8 to 3.3 based on 7-10% returns for 10 years.
From there they work to cover bills and will be at 5m in 5-7 yrs roughy.
Thats a substantial amt anyway u slice it. 10 years of 7-10% and 200k yearly also requires some damn luck to esp the returns, no crashes, or lifestyle creep.
That being said, im wired to hustle now and work less later. If i was 10 pounds overweight i would literally fast 48-72 hours 3-4 times over the month and just get it done. This is probably not the norm.
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Our org uses two different national salary surveys (MGMA and one other) narrowed to large multispecialty group / large group and I can also say around $320-$330k (can't recall if it's mean or median) is about right from those surveys. The numbers I'd be familiar with are usually 1.5-2 years out of date due to how the surveys and our pay update process works, so actual median pay for new hires today is probably more than that.
