WHAT DO AVERAGE nocturnists working in U.S. hospitals earn, how many shifts a month do they work and how many patient encounters do they have per shift? According to data from the 2023 Today’s Hospitalist Compensation & Career Survey, nocturnists do earn more money than their colleagues who work days, but the differences in pay—and other factors like hours—aren’t always as pronounced as you might think.
Here’s a look at the data.
Pay
In our survey, nocturnists reported a mean compensation of $360,372. That’s about 6% higher than the $339,438 mean pay figure reported by all adult hospitalists and the $339,381 mean compensation reported by hospitalists who work seven-on/seven-off shifts.
Nocturnists are slightly more likely to be paid via only salary (39.5%) than adult hospitalists (33.9%). Nocturnists also receive a smaller amount of their pay from bonuses/incentives ($31,172) compared to all hospitalists treating adults ($40,867).
Patient volumes
One of the big differences between nocturnists and other hospitalists can be seen in the number of patient encounters they have per shift. Nocturnists have an average of 10.7 patient encounters per shift, compared to 16.1 for adult hospitalists working seven-on/seven-off.
When it comes to what’s a reasonable patient load, nocturnists said that 9.1 patient encounters per shift is the sweet spot. Adult hospitalists, by comparison, said that 14.4 patient encounters per shift is reasonable. As a whole, nocturnists think their patient loads are closer to reasonable than the overall group of hospitalists treating adults.
Schedules
Most nocturnists (91.3%) said they consider themselves part time, and they do work fewer shifts than daytime hospitalists. While adult hospitalists as a group reported working 15 shifts a month, nocturnists reported working 13.3 shifts a month. That’s a difference of about 13%.
When it comes to weekend shifts, that gap closes a bit. While nocturnists reported working 3.4 weekend shifts a month, all adult hospitalists reported working a monthly average of 3.6 weekend shifts. That’s about a 6% difference.
Career satisfaction
Career satisfaction for nocturnists jumped from 83.3% in our 2022 survey to 90.5% in our 2023 survey, an 8.6% increase. Among adult hospitalists, by comparison, 86.5% said they were satisfied in 2023, which represented a 5.9% boost over the previous year.
