Orthopedic surgeons, who earn a median annual salary of $555, 000, top the list of the highest paid among 23 medical specialties, according to Joseph Conn, writing for Modern Healthcare, which recently completed its 23rd annual Physician Compensation Survey covering 6, 500 healthcare organizations and almost 346, 000 physicians.
The sums listed for salaries are for wages only—paid as salaries and bonuses. They do not include any other benefits doctors may receive such as insurance or stock options. Conn noted that surgeons working in a field where margins are coming under pressure—such as is occurring with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) calling for bundled payments for knee and hip implants saw only a 0.3% average pay increase over the previous year.
According to Conn, the five lowest-paid medical specialties, from the bottom up are:
- Pediatrics with a median compensation of $224, 000
- Family practice, $229, 000
- Internal medicine, $247, 300
- Psychiatry, $250, 000
- Hospitalist, $260, 000.
Recruiting a physician to a practice is costly s well. Conn relates the experience of Michael Patterson, CEO of Mississippi Valley Surgery Center in Davenport, Iowa. Patterson began recruiting a candidate for his orthopedic practice while the student still had a full year to go on a surgical fellowship when the recruiting began. “To get to him, we called 10 docs and flew three of them in for face-to-face meetings, ” Patterson said. “Counting airfare, hotel expenses and recruiters’ fees, the cost to lure one physician will range between $50, 000 and $100, 000.”
Patterson also acknowledged that a community such as Davenport, which is a distance from urban areas and lack amenities such as ski resorts or proximity to an ocean, find recruiting medical staff more difficult and costly. “The going rate to recruit a new orthopedic surgeon into a practice (here) is around $600, 000 a year, ” Patterson said.
And with the inexorably aging population, these numbers are likely to keep rising.
