2017 first year physician pay rose by less than 2% in decade, study says

Last year was the first year physician pay rose by less than 2 percent in over 10 years, the American Medical Group Association's Medical Group Compensation and Productivity Survey found.

The survey includes data for 140 physician specialties and 27 other provider specialties, with breakdowns by region and group size.

Survey responses came from 270 large, multispecialty medical groups and integrated health systems, representing over 105,000 clinical providers. The average number of providers per participant group was about 380. About 72 percent of respondents were AMGA members.

The national median revealed a compensation increase of just 0.89 percent overall, and changes in provider productivity and compensation varied by specialty, the survey found. The weighted average change in median compensation in all medical specialties during 2017 was 1.2 percent.

Here are the 2017-18 percentage changes for physician compensation in eight specialties highlighted in AMGA's survey:

1. Cardiac/thoracic surgery: 6.4 percent increase

2. Emergency medicine: 1 percent increase

3. General surgery: 0.7 percent increase

4. OB-GYN (general): .9 percent increase

5. Ophthalmology: 2.3 percent decrease

6. Orthopedic surgery: 0.9 percent increase

7. Otolaryngology: 0.4 percent increase

8. Urology: 0.1 percent decrease

Learn more about the survey here.

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