Practice owners receive only 35% of income from salary compared to 69.5% for employees, with 40.8% from productivity and 18.2% from practice financial performance, according to the American Medical Association’s policy research perspective published March 2029.
The report analyzed physician compensation methods from 2014 to 2024 using data from the AMA’s Physician Practice Benchmark Survey.
Here are seven things to know:
1. Nearly 61% of physicians are compensated through two or more methods, up from 51% in 2014. Sole reliance on productivity pay dropped 5 percentage points over the decade.
2. Salary accounts for 58.2% of average physician income, up from 50.1% in 2014, but productivity remains substantial at 28.1%.
3. About 25% of employed physicians’ compensation still comes from variable sources, with 21.9% citing productivity and 2.5% citing practice financial performance.
4. Male owners have a 10-point higher productivity share than female owners. Male employees have a 4-point higher share than female employees.
5. Surgical specialists, especially ophthalmology and orthopedics, are outliers heavily reliant on productivity. Ophthalmologists (57.1%), orthopedic surgeons (52.6%), and other surgical subspecialists (40.7%) derive the majority of income from productivity, unlike virtually every other specialty.
6. Hospital-employed/contracted physicians have the highest salary share at 74.7% and lowest productivity exposure at 15%. Single-specialty group practices have notably less salary and more productivity exposure than multispecialty or hospital settings.
7. Bonus prevalence rose 9 percentage points since 2014, but bonuses average only 4.4% of total compensation.
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