1. Medscape reported the average compensation for primary care physicians was $242,000 in 2021, and average pay for specialists was $344,000. Plastic surgeons reported the highest average compensation at $526,000 while orthopedic surgeons followed at $511,000.
2. Physician pay was up slightly year over year for primary care physicians but dropped by $2,000 for specialists, according to the Medscape report. ENT physicians experienced the biggest pay drop, at 9 percent, from 2019 to 2020. Orthopedic surgeons, family medicine physicians and infectious disease specialists all reported flat pay, while plastic surgeons had a 10 percent jump in compensation.
3. Physicians operating their own practices also earned higher compensation on average than hospital employees. Self-employed physicians reported $352,000 on average, compared with $300,000 for hospital-employed physicians.
4. By comparison, healthcare CEO total compensation hit $15.5 million in 2020, according to the AFL-CIO’s annual executive compensation report, the most recent data available. The highest paid health system executive was Samuel Hazen, CEO of Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare, who reported $30.4 million in annual pay. Ronald Rittenmayer, CEO of Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare, earned $16.7 million and Alan Miller, CEO of King of Prussia, Pa.-based Universal Health Services, received $13.2 million.
5. Individual hospital CEO salaries are harder to pin down. However, a 2019 Dignity Healthcare report showed the average compensation for hospital CEOs with annual revenue below $50 million was $274,300 while top executives at hospitals with annual revenue above $1 billion make $1.4 million on average.
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