OVERALL PAY for full-time adult hospitalists saw minor gains over last year, but those numbers don’t show how compensation rose and fell over the year among hospitalists in different types of groups.
When it comes to compensation, this year’s winners came from two types of programs: hospitalists working at primary care/multispecialty practices and medical schools/universities. The other three types of employment groups we track all lost ground in this year’s survey in terms of pay.
The winners
Let’s start with the winners: Hospitalists working in primary care/multispecialty groups reported a mean income of $359,994. That’s a gain of $24,300 over last year’s data, or a 7.2% bump up.
That cohort of hospitalists makes more money than hospitalists working in any other type of program that we track. This group also earns considerably more than the mean comp of $339,438 reported by all full-time adult hospitalists.
Hospitalists working for medical schools/universities indicated similar growth, reporting a raise of $18,908—7.0% over the previous year—for a mean total compensation of $290,773. That’s still considerably lower than the mean for all adult hospitalists, but hospitalists in these centers have always made less money for a number of reasons.
Who lost ground?
The hospitalists who took the biggest hit in this year’s survey over the previous year, at least according to data on practice type, work for local hospitalist groups. These doctors reported a mean compensation of $354,927, a drop of $8,562, or 2.4%, from last year.
The good news is that while hospitalists working in local groups may have taken the biggest hit, they’re still the second highest paid group among hospitalists in this year’s survey. They are making well above the mean for all full-time adult hospitalists. These hospitalists are also making only about $5,000 less than their colleagues working at primary care/multispecialty practices.
Given the problems that national hospitalist management companies are having, at least those owned by venture capital firms, it’s probably not a big surprise that pay for hospitalists working for these companies dropped $4,790, or 1.4%, to a mean of $334,828.
That puts these physicians fairly close to the mean comp reported by hospitalists who work for hospitals/hospital corporations. This group reported a mean compensation of $336,621 in this year’s survey. That’s a drop of $6,213, or 1.8%, over last year’s numbers.
Look at more data on hospitalist pay at our 2023 Today’s Hospitalist Compensation & Career Survey coverage.
How many shifts a month?
Hopefully this article “How does working more shifts affect hospitalist pay?” will answer your questions. In addition, don’t forget to check out all our survey data here: Compensation and Career Survey results.