Physician Compensation Factoids

Doximity, the physicians network that claims to have more physician members than the American Medical Association, runs a nice little blog covering interesting angles of the profession (e.g., ‘3 Jb-Hunting Strategies to Help Today’s Residents,’ ‘More ROI on Your Medical Degree’). A recent post, ‘Physician Careers: Understanding the Market’, is a case in point. Leveraging data from Doximity’s Career Navigator—a “comprehensive career resource [including] physician compensation estimates and open job opportunities”—the January 27, 2016 post highlighted the following data points on physician compensation across the U.S.:

• “cities where our data shows physicians are most interested in working — Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. — have average salaries significantly lower than the rest of the country. Physicians living in our nation’s capital, for example, had the lowest average salary across all specialties — making a full 17% less than the national average for all specialties.”
• Based on Doximity’s employer recruitment data, the hottest U.S. markets today for physicians today are: Denver, Louisville (KY), Spokane (WA), Las Vegas, and Colorado Springs.
• Minnesota and Indiana surpass all other U.S. states in average annual income for physicians-–both are 13% above the U.S. average for all specialties.
• The highest-paying states for primary care physicians (family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, OB/GYN) according to Doximity data are Arkansas ($330,000), South Dakota ($305,000) and Iowa ($305,000).
• The lowest-paying states for primary care physicians are Delaware ($218,000), West Virginia ($205,000), and D.C. ($192,000).
• The highest-paying states for specialists are North Dakota ($472,000), Wyoming ($433,000), and Idaho ($429,000); the lowest-paying are Vermont ($299,000), D.C. ($298,000), and Rhode Island ($291,000).
• Academic physicians make on average 13% less than their non-academic counterparts, with significant variety by specialty (e.g., academic cardiologists earn on average 52% (or $150,000) less than non-academic cardiologists).
• Male physicians tend to earn an average of 21% more than female physicians.

For more physician compensation data, check out Doximity.com.