It's amazing how much one can miss in this thread after a brief hiatus. I'm going to necro the topic of physician compensation because it's an important one and one that benefits us all. Below are my thoughts on it all.
Information Asymmetry is real and we as physicians need to get better about correcting that. We do that by talking about compensation with one another and by not being weird about it (I know the last one is hard for us). Some of us are embarrassed to talk about our compensation, either because it's very low (wow, I learn way less than my peers) or very high (wow, I don't deserve this massive salary that I've worked decades to earn). We need to stop letting what someone earns influence our opinions of them, and simultaneously need to stop tying our own self worth to what we earn. Our employers know what we and our colleagues generate/earn, what our competitors pay, what the national averages are, etc. and if we think we are undercompensated, the only way we can hope to correct that is to know what is adequate compensation. This isn't always going to go in your favor, but from my experience in my renegotiations and my regional colleagues' experience in theirs, this has helped us all for the better.
To put my money where my mouth is, I have a circle of radonc friends that I speak with regularly, in a variety of positions, all around 3-5 years out working in or around large urban centers. None of the non-academic docs have a monetary compensation (talking salary + bonus and not including any 401k match or fringe benefits) that is under 500k and even the academic ones are closer to 400k than they are to 300k. This is a sample size of 10 and most are on the order of 18-25 patients on treat on average. These are all bright, hard working, charismatic people who practice standard of care radonc, make a great living, and whose health systems are all the better for employing them. They are all employed by health systems except for one, who is a busy member of a large multispecialty group with 25-30 on treat who I suspect makes closer to 700k+. All is not right in Denmark though. One of my colleagues is a member of the largest health system in my region, treating 25-30 with significant administrative titles and responsibilities, making closer to 500k which I would consider to be grossly under market. Of this group of 10, 8 have been in the same position since completing residency and 2 are on their second job.
I don't think the MGMA or ACRO numbers are that far off. The median starting salary is about 330-350k so is it so absurd to expect a 50-150k jump for an average early-mid career physician? I see that some of the members of this forum have taken exception to these numbers. There are certainly massive regional variations, but I'm just throwing my hat in the ring to say that my experience and those of my peers really matches the published medians. If your experience doesn't, then perhaps it's time to evaluate why not.
A note about the MGMA surveys, they report "compensation" which does include bonus and some other benefits which can skew the numbers up a bit though not by that much.
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Now, on the topic of how much we SHOULD get paid, there was a fantastic presentation at the ARRO portion of the 2016 ASTRO meeting by Ben Falit that is worth tracking down if you have access. I'm not sure if he or anyone else has given it since, but I've pasted a great slide from it below. These numbers are going to be a bit different depending on how much IMRT/SRS/SBRT/Brachy/Hypofractionation you do. Also, average fraction number has shifted significantly downward over the last 6 years so this probably overestimates things a bit.
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For those of you that are hospital employed (most of us these days) wRVUs or Work RVUs are what we typically talk about. Based on the 2018 MGMA survey, the 25th percentile $/wRVU was 46.9, median was 54.45, and 75th percentile was 66.86. I can tell you that two of the 3 major health systems in my area pay about the median $/wRVU and the 3rd (and largest) health system, which probably employs 20-30 radoncs, has its own way of determining compensation that is quite opaque and provides the worst compensation in the region.
I mentioned some caveats above that are important to consider and so feel free to tweak these numbers/formulas as you see fit. I personally think 500 wRVU is a more reasonable conversion these days but this is going to vary considerably by practice. Assuming 500 wRVU, 15 on beam = ~$400k TOTAL COMPENSATION, and 20 on beam = ~$550k TOTAL COMPENSATION so I don't think the numbers are all that far off..
I hope this is a helpful contribution to the discussion.