Gains in specialists' compensation outpace primary care

MGMA survey data show trend of past few years continues, with demand generating higher increases for anesthesiologists, urologists and cardiologists.

By Julie A. Jacob, AMNews staff. Oct. 15, 2001.

Anesthesiologists and urologists posted the biggest gains in compensation last year, thanks to the high demand for their specialties, according to the Medical Group Management Assn.'s 2001 Physician Compensation and Production Survey.

Average compensation for anesthesiologists increased last year 14.5%, to $280,353, a sharp reversal from the specialty's 2.2% decline in compensation the previous year.

Compensation for urologists increased an average of 12.3%, to $301,772, which was about the same as the specialty's 12% increase in compensation the previous year.

Another specialty experiencing a strong gain in compensation was cardiologists. Non-invasive cardiologists posted a 7.7% increase in compensation, to $300,073, almost identical to the 7.6% increase, to $365,894, for invasive cardiologists.

Specialists that experienced a decline in compensation included diagnostic radiologists, down 5.1%, and neurologists, down 1.7%.

In contrast to the strong gains in compensation experienced by some specialists, compensation for primary care physicians inched up only slightly last year.

That was a continuation of the trend of small increases in compensation for primary care physicians that has occurred since the mid-1990s.

Compensation for primary care physicians, overall, increased only 2.2% last year, to $147,232. Compensation for family physicians increased 2.6%, to $145,121; for internists, 2.5%, to $149,104.

The trend of the past few years, in which compensation for some specialists outstripped the compensation increases for primary care physicians, is a reversal of the trend of the early- and mid-1990s, said David Gans, the MGMA's director of medical practice resources. [...]