By Josh Katzowitz, WCI Content Director
Two years ago, the average salary for physicians actually dropped. And while doctor incomes have risen since then, the increases have been relatively minuscule. According to the latest survey numbers, the average rise in salaries for 2024 was one of the lowest in 14 years, and the majority of physicians still believe they're not being paid enough for how much and how hard they work.
According to the newly released 2025 Medscape Physician Compensation Report, US physicians' total compensation rose an average of 3.6% in 2024, a much better number than the 2.4% drop that occurred in 2023. Primary care physicians' compensation rose 1.4%, according to the Medscape survey (which took information from more than 7,000 doctors), while those in the 29+ specialties that were analyzed rose 1%. Overall, all physicians who were surveyed averaged a compensation of $376,000—a 3.6% increase from the $363,000 they earned the year before.
The 2025 Doximity Physician Compensation Report showed that physicians had increased their pay by 3.7% in 2024 (after an increase of 6% in 2023 and a decline of 2.4% the year before). Still, Domixity said that, when adjusted for inflation, Medicare physician payment had decreased by 33% since 2001.
Wrote Doximity:
“This environment underscores that, for many physicians, real earnings have not kept pace with rising costs and declining payment rates.”
In 2022, physician income and a doctor's purchasing power were hurt by inflation that reached a high of 9.1% that summer. That meant a doctor's net worth also probably decreased, particularly since stocks and bonds both had terrible years in 2022. But inflation stabilized in 2023, and the S&P 500 posted a 24% gain. The S&P posted another 23% gain in 2024.
According to the MGMA 2024 Provider Compensation Data Report, primary care physician and surgical specialist physician total compensation both increased about 4.4% from 2022 to 2023. But nonsurgical specialist physical total compensation only rose 1.81% in the same time frame.
The physicians who were surveyed by Medscape in the 2025 survey weren't necessarily thrilled by their salaries.
Sixty-two percent of those surveyed believe that most physicians are underpaid, while 33% believe they're paid just right. The other 5% think most physicians are paid too much. To compare those numbers with Americans who were surveyed in 2021, only 11% thought doctors were underpaid. When the Medscape survey-takers were asked if they thought they themselves were underpaid, only 53% said yes.
As one survey-taker said in the 2024 survey:
“Do I feel I am paid well? Yes, in comparison to other Americans. However, I gave the time, money, and sacrifice to do it.”
In a Doximity article released in August 2022, a survey of more than 1,000 doctors found that 55% of them are either delaying retirement (about 40% of those who were surveyed) or reducing their expenses (about 15%) because of the economic environment at the time. According to Doximity, “Older physicians, who are closer to the traditional retirement age, are much more likely to delay retirement than younger physicians. But a substantial percentage of those in their 30s and 40s are also planning to delay retirement.”
According to Doximity’s latest data, which was gathered with the help of 37,000 US physicians from January 2024-December 2025, the gender pay gap increased slightly to 26% after it had narrowed to 23% in 2023 (it was 26% in 2022 and 28% in 2021), as male doctors earn about $121,000 more than their female colleagues per year (it was a $102,00 in 2023 and a $110,000 difference in 2022). That disparity also could have led to more cases of physician burnout.
“One of the most critical steps to closing the physician gender pay gap is raising awareness of its existence,” Doximity wrote in 2024. “In a survey of over 1,000 physicians, conducted in February and March 2024, about half (nearly 52%) said they believe there is a disparity in how men and women physicians are compensated. However, gender appears to impact this belief. While nearly 75% of women physicians surveyed believe there is a pay disparity, fewer than 30% of men physicians also believe this is true.”
The latest Medscape data also shows the pay gap has widened slightly, as male doctors averaged $415,000 and female doctors averaged $317,000, a $98,000 difference. In the previous year's survey, male doctors averaged $400,000 and female doctors averaged $310,000, a $90,000 difference.
Still, doctors are paid more than just about anybody else in the US. As reported by USA Today in late 2024, of the 20 US jobs with the highest average pay, 16 of those are filled by physicians (dentists and dental specialists make up the other four spots).
Average Doctor Salary
In reality, the average doctor's salary of $376,000 isn't all that useful to know.
As an example: according to the latest Doximity report, the average pediatric endocrinologist makes $230,426 per year. The average neurosurgeon makes $749,140. That's a difference of about $520,000. Which, when comparing those two specialties, means absolutely nothing. Plus, consider that, according to the 2025 Medscape survey, the average primary care physician makes $281,000 vs. a specialist who makes $398,000. That's also a pretty big difference. Here's a quick look at general compensation from Medscape's most recent survey.
Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2025
It's almost certainly more useful to know the average in a doctor's specialty as opposed to the salary of a physician in general.
Intraspecialty Pay vs. Interspecialty Pay
As Dr. Jim Dahle has repeatedly pointed out, “One of the things I have noticed that no one ever seems to talk about is that intraspecialty pay variation is higher than interspecialty pay variation.”
As Jim noted in a previous post, here’s a chart from 2015 that shows the results of an emergency medicine salary survey. The salaries might be outdated, but the general point remains.
He wrote:
“Look at the 10th percentile for employees—$213,000. Now, look at the 90th percentile for partners—$510,000. Difference? $297,000. GREATER than the difference between the average pediatrician and the average plastic surgeon!
The ability to increase pay and increase it substantially solves a ton of financial problems that real doctors run into and email me about all the time. It's way easier to pay off your student loans or mortgage on twice the income. Even after-tax, it's much easier to become financially independent or have a dignified retirement or send your kids to the college of their choice when you can double your income.”
Marit also has an up-to-date chart that shows how wide the ranges can be, especially in cardiology, neurosurgery, plastic surgery, and orthopedic surgery.
How Much Do Doctors Make an Hour?
Physician income information is relatively easy to find, but work hours information is notoriously difficult. The only information that combined physician work hours with their income is from a survey in JAMA published in 2003 (which obviously uses even older data).
The below physician salary per hour chart combines the JAMA data with Medscape’s 2025 survey, and it's adjusted for the decreased work hours in each specialty. This chart (possibly erroneously) assumes that all physicians work 48 weeks a year.
Doctor Salary by Specialty
One interesting thing about salary surveys is that they are garbage in/garbage out. Average specialty pay varies significantly between surveys. Before we focus on the Doximity numbers, which you'll find in the paragraphs below, compare and contrast those numbers with the average annual earnings by specialty from the 2025 Medscape survey.
Medscape says infectious disease doctors make $277,000. Doximity says $320,000. That's a 15.5% difference. Medscape says orthopedists make $543,000. Doximity says $679,000, 25% more. What is a new grad or even an established doc who wants to negotiate a contract supposed to do with that much variation between averages (besides using the Doximity survey when negotiating)? But what if you're a neurosurgeon or CT surgeon, and Medscape doesn't report on your specialty? Or you don't see your specialty listed on Doximity? Are you stuck paying to get MGMA data (or hiring a contract management firm)? Is that data even any better than these surveys?
Marit also provides physician salary data, including salary information for newly graduated physicians, and the vision of the company is “to build the largest, most accurate, community-powered source of salary data in medicine—and make it free for all clinicians” by getting doctors to input their own compensation numbers. Here are some of the latest numbers from Marit, many of which dwarf the numbers provided by Medscape (click to enlarge the photo).
For even further exploration, here are several individual specialties we've put together in recent years, how much money those doctors make, and whether they think their income is fair:
- How Much Does a Pediatrician Make?
- How Much Does a Radiologist Make?
- How Much Does an Anesthesiologist Make?
- How Much Do Psychiatrists Make?
- How Much Does a Neurologist Make?
- How Much Does a Cardiologist Make?
- How Much Does a Dermatologist Make?
- How Much Does a Urologist Make?
- How Much Does a Pathologist Make?
- How Much Does a Plastic Surgeon Make?
- How Much Does an Oncologist Make?
- How Much Does a Nephrologist Make?
- How Much Does an OB-GYN Make?
- How Much Does a Rheumatologist Make?
- How Much Does a Family Medicine Doctor Make?
- How Much Does a Pulmonologist Make?
- How Much Does a Physiatrist Make?
- How Much Does a Hospitalist Make?
- How Much Do Orthopedic Doctors Make?
- Doctor vs. Dentist Salary
- Where Do Millennial Doctors Make the Most Money (and How Much Do They Make)?
Highest-Paid Doctors
Now, for the Doximity survey numbers that tell us the highest-paid and the lowest-paid doctors. When it comes to the top-earning specialties, those in surgical and procedural specialties dominated the list, and doctors who earn the least mostly practice in primary care and pediatrics.
So, how much do doctors make? Here’s what Doximity found for 2025.
Lowest-Paid Doctors
And here are the specialties that earn the lowest salaries.
Keep in mind that these charts are of the top 20 highest and lowest average doctor salaries. For specialties like psychiatry, neurology, and geriatrics, those average salaries range from about $291,000 to about $360,000.
As for which specialty's salaries are increasing and decreasing the most, here's a chart put together by Medscape in its 2025 survey.
Doctor Salary by State and Region
One way to get closer to financial independence is to practice geographic arbitrage, where a doctor lives in a lower-cost-of-living area and draws a higher salary where the need for physicians might be greater than those in the big cities on the coasts. The following chart from Medscape in 2023 seems to show that geoarbitrage is not a myth.
Obviously, a doctor living in New York City is going to have a much higher cost of living than a physician who's residing in Weyauwega, Wisconsin. The fact that a doctor in the Badger State probably brings home more money than a physician in the Big Apple is also another point in favor of practicing geographic arbitrage.
In 2025, Medscape released this chart, showing that US doctors make more money in the north central part of the country.
As Medscape notes, “hospitals in rural states with fewer doctors per capita must ramp up their base salary, signing bonus, and loan-repayment options to compete with big-city markets that offer lifestyle advantages.”
Doctor Salaries by Employment Setting
The setting in which a doctor practices also heavily affects how much they earn. As you can see below, via the Doximity survey, the difference between practicing in a single-specialty group vs. working for an urgent care center can be nearly $173,000 a year in 2024.
- Single Specialty Group: $477,000 (a 3.5% increase from last year)
- Multi-Specialty Group: $462,000 (a 3.4% increase from last year)
- Solo Practice: $458,000 (a 3.4% increase from last year)
- Hospital: $439,000 (a 2.6% increase from last year)
- Health System/IDN/ACO: $439,000 (a 2.8% increase from last year)
- Health Maintenance Organization: $412,000 (a 1.5% increase from last year)
- Academic: $382,000 (a 4.7% increase from last year)
- Urgent Care Center/Chain: $308,000 (a 6.9% increase from last year)
- Government: $303,000 (a 1.7% increase from last year)
Need tips for how to increase pay in your specific specialty? Jim has some ideas.
There's plenty more to read in the entire Doximity report—which also includes information on physician compensation in different metro areas, cities with the fastest-growing doctor salaries, and the impact of physician shortages. For comparison, here's Medscape's Physician Compensation 2025 Report.
What do you think? Are you surprised by any of these numbers? Have you found a way to increase your pay in your specialty?
Where in the hell do you get these numbers. In Maine, pediatricians make from $120,000 to $150,000. This type of article is what makes the non-physicians think we are rich.
There are links all over this article sourcing the numbers that were provided in various surveys. That’s where the numbers come from. In fact, there’s a link to the Doximity report in the very first paragraph of this post.
There is no salary survey I have seen that suggests your stated salary is anything but far below average. Do you think all of your colleagues and their administrators are lying on their surveys? Seems unlikely doesn’t it? Now if you’re working 3 days a week and only taking call once a month, sure, $120K may be reasonable (I get paid far less than the average emergency doc because I only work 6 day shifts a month). But full-time? Busting your butt? You’re being ripped off by an employer or running an inefficient practice if self-employed. You should be able to change jobs and double your income. Or at least walk into your employer’s office and drop those surveys on his desk and say “Pay me what I’m worth or I’m leaving”.
As a retired OB-GYN I have always felt for the hours spent at work and cost of insurance paid we are woefully under paid.
The fact that intra-specialty pay ranges are frequently substantially wider than inter-specialty pay ranges strikes me as the most important piece of information and advice in this article. Whatever our area of expertise, there are ways to locate, describe, and resolve exceptional issues that will boost our pay. We are all high earners by definition, and we may use our doctor bills as starting capital for other, frequently leveraged, streams of revenue!
I think that the breakdown of hourly wages is crucial however, it’s very difficult to locate information on. I’m in the pediatric ICU and, according to this study, I earn more than the typical radiologist or adult Urologist …. however, I’d wager that I’m working longer hours to achieve it (at at least in the next couple of years). It makes the information less valuable if they include those who work part-time as part of”the “average.”
I believe that there is a gender gap in wages that has something to do with it (women are more intelligent than men and are less greedy. They are more likely to work part-time or work an excessive amount overwork). I’d be very interested to find out how gender-based differences are in terms of hourly wages. I’m sure one exists however I’d wager that it’s not as dramatic.
When I am job-hunting, I don’t focus on the number on the top of the line and instead, I take a look at the hourly wage for a real comparison
hmm ok
I think these days influencers make more than anyone without any special talents.
Yes, but only the top 0.01% of them.
This is such interesting information. I was always curious about what doctors made. I have heard the riches are in the niches. It looks like that’s the same for doctors. It is surprising how many hours some of them put in!
Funny that you take the opposite angle that most docs are taking from this article.
Interesting insights into the shifts in physician salaries over the past few years. The impact of the 2.4% drop in average salaries in 2022, coupled with the 2% Medicare payment cut projected for 2023, underscores the challenges faced by the medical community. The discussion on the gender pay gap and its potential contribution to physician burnout is particularly noteworthy. It’s crucial to address not only the average salaries but also the intricacies within specialties and various employment settings. Looking forward to more in-depth analyses on how these trends might shape the future landscape of the healthcare industry.
One more thing to consider for low primary care salaries. Those docs that are in corporate practices and have the extra time burden of the computerized messaging systems will have a lot more to do that is not compensated. For those that have finite time limitations, they have no other choice than to work part-time. In my primary care clinic, over half the docs are part time. It is the only way to reduce the time requirement, as the messages (and calls, and refills, and faxes) are “unlimited”. and in my opinion, uncontrolled. This would skew some of those numbers to even lower levels due to the work load. I am assuming the messaging burden is less for subspecialties than primary care, which is based on discussions with specialist colleagues.
I think the key is to figure out a way to get compensated for that stuff. If I wasn’t getting paid to response to patient messages, I would have an auto reply that said “I don’t get paid for reading and responding to these messages and I don’t want to work for free. So until we can figure out a way for me to get paid to respond to them, don’t expect a response. Call the office and make an appointment if you want to talk to me, want a refill, or need some paperwork filled out.”
How to deal with patient access to charts and in-chart messaging is a huge and interesting and growing issue in all branches of outpatient medicine. I love this auto reply response, and I have considered it many times, but never quite pulled the trigger. I am salaried and work for a large group, so “get paid” for these messages means “comes out of billable clinical time”. Obviously administration doesn’t like that and, in truth, far too much of the time to answer these queries does come from my personal time. However, the administration’s case for prioritizing these messages at all is that value based care is coming like a freight train and in that case, the payoff will come in the efficiency of a robust ecosystem of digital health care where you can spend a minute or two and address a problem as opposed to 30 minutes in the office. I get the argument, but I’ve been hearing value based care is coming for at least 15 years…
Wew Thats A lot Of Money..
Great info/discussion. With respect to intra-specialty pay variation, in my field (rads) its essentially a direct correlation with RVU production. Is this different with other specialties?
It’s probably much more that way in Rads than other things, but even in Rads I suspect there is decent geographic variation that has little to do with RVUs. Plus there are always the military docs making $150K to provide the lower end of the scale and the senior partners who own a group of other rads on the upper end.
negative secular trends in medicine
more clipboard managers and executives who never see a patient than ever cranking out 6-7-8 figure salaries
horrible
I think the breakdown by hourly pay is important, but very hard to find data on. I’m in pediatric ICU and according to this I make more than the average radiologist.
Wouldn’t surprise me one bit that some pediatricians making more than the average radiologist. I’ve probably looked at every publicly available salary survey for physicians ever done and talked to thousands of doctors about their incomes. My takeaway? The intraspecialty pay variation is far more than the average interspecialty pay variation. Your income is in your control far more than most docs think. You don’t have to have an average income for your specialty, much less a below average one. That’s a choice you’re making (together with your family.) There’s nothing keeping you from moving to a medium sized town in the Midwest, building your own practice with docs and APCs working under you, dropping Medicaid patients and prioritizing procedures that pay well, negotiating contracts harder, maximizing practice efficiency, working 60+ hours a week etc. It’s not a mystery how some docs make more than others. If it was easy and had no downsides, everybody would do it. But to pretend it can’t be done is silly. There are thousands of doctors in YOUR specialty out there doing it.
Great article, more people should know this.
All these data are based on surveys which are never accurate. Show me 1040.
Medical field is filled with middlemen, who make money on the backs of regular guys. Majority of docs are employed by a “practice” which has a boss. That boss is the middlemen between the customer(patient, insurer and hospitals) and the client(doctor).
Presence of these middlemen keep everything secret under privacy laws.
Better not to have anything or to have this? Because a survey demanding 1040s isn’t going to happen. Plus, there’s a lot of other stuff on the 1040. If you’re going to demand something, how about a W-2, K-1, or 1099?
That’s the point. Most people lie on surveys, but cant lie on 1040.
How does it benefit you to lie on an anonymous survey? Don’t project your own behavior on to the rest of us. 🙂
That’s a personal attack. I did not say you lie. I said most people lie. Reasons I do not know.
No, it’s a joke. You can tell because there’s a 🙂 after it.
Seriously though, why do you think people lie on anonymous salary surveys? And even if they did, why do you think the lies all trend the same direction? And which direction do you think they trend?
I think most people under report income and over report work hours.
I don’t have any data to support this claim.
Lol
Maybe there is a systematic benefit in doctors underreporting pay so patients, payers, taxpayers etc. think we don’t make as much as we do.
Any data on DPMs? Specialists/surgeons but definitely in a lower pay bracket than closest match of ortho.
Yes, there is some data out there but there are definitely fewer surveys. Probably best to hire a contract review firm is there is a real need to have it.
Shocking to see Alabama topping the listed of highest paid doctors.
Why? As a general rule doctors do get paid more in “flyover” states.
A very enlightening post, great job on data gathering. As someone who is not in the medical profession, are some of the very high salaries ($500k+) due to the fact that medical school is so much more expensive now, or that it’s hard to fill physician roles so hospitals must incentive higher pay (as opposed to those who go into private practice? I wonder if the high prices of medical bills is due to this or other contributing factors, as I think medical debt is one of the #1 causes of debt and bankruptcy.
The physician compensation in my opinion would not be the primary (or secondary) contributing factor to high priced medical bills. I’m in a procedure based specialty and get reimbursed <3% the cost of the procedure. I don't know where the rest goes exactly (cost of prepping procedure room, supplies, support staff, admin pay etc) but it doesn't end up in a physician's pocket. Some of the very high salaries aren't as much due to medical school expenses as they are other factors such as increased hours worked, increased call burden and geographic arbitrage. There is some incentive for higher pay in higher demand specialties, but the demand isn't from the medical school debt, but the residency spots that haven't increased to account for turnover/retirement in certain specialties. Alternatively, some practitioners that make $500K+ take on the added risk of running their own practice which can lead to higher salaries. They may not accept lower reimbursing insurance sources, add additional services, leverage APPs, or add to their income through other entrepreneurial avenues.
There’s a lot that goes into a physician income. It’s a crazy system. The best way to be worth more is to work hard and develop some knowledge and skills that are rare. A GI doc in a medium sized town in the Midwest is rare and with hard work and running a great practice can make seven figures no problem. But I’m sure there are academic gastroenterologists in big cities making $300,000 as employees.
As the other poster noted, the % of the health care dollar that goes to doctors as salary is actually pretty low. Despite being the “face” of medicine, most of what you’re paying isn’t going to us, especially after overhead. Consider a typical ER visit. You and your insurance company might pay the hospital $5,000 and the doctor $200 and the doc might only get $150 after overhead of which the take home after health insurance, 401(k), payroll, and income taxes might only be $70. Maybe that doc saw two patients like you an hour and so takes home $140 an hour.
I’ll bet if you looked at medical debt bankruptcies, very few of them are actually due to physician bills.
Interesting article that highlights the substantial variability within and among different specialities. I appreciate that they started to delve into variables besides just speciality (practice setting, hours, etc) but I am always annoyed when any article (even outside medicine) discusses gender pay gap as a univariate analysis; this is obviously done intentionally but it’s also obvious that there are many factors at play. Choosing to just look at yearly income to sensationalize the topic is not only misleading, it’s completely unhelpful in addressing any problem.
Even if you don’t have all the stats at least mention some of the likely factors. For example, it is definitely true that 50 years ago it was mostly men that went to med school and became doctors and it was very hard for women to break through these biases. Thankfully today med school classes are usually 50-50 or close to it. But if we looked at physicians that are 60+ years old we are going to find a lot more men, and having been in their career for that long they are likely going to be commanding a larger salary/wage having either built up their practice, or climbed the latter and are now chair of a department. This would obviously affect the data if you were looking just at gender and ignoring this variable.
Again, we can’t appropriately address an issue if we don’t accurately describe and understand the problem. I am sure if we accounted for all the other variables we would still find a gender pay gap but I would suspect it would be not nearly as exciting as the numbers posted in this article.
I would really like to see a thorough breakdown of this issue; looking at not just specialty but subspecialty, hours, duration of career, vacation amount, gaps in career, location, administrative roles within specialty, related medical work (product development, research etc), percentage of men and women that apply to each specialty and percent that gets in etc. Then we can have much better insights to address the issue and promote better solutions. Finally, I think mentally if both men and women physicians understood this breakdown better and where they fit in to it, they would be more satisfied with their work or be able to identify ways to achieve better satisfaction,
I do not trust the Medscape numbers. They are done by doctors self reporting on a survey. Are some reporting gross pay and others reporting taxable income after expenses? An office with staff can easily cost 40% of income for many doctors. I also suspect surveys lead to under reporting to avoid appearing outside the expected norm. Lower reporting also makes dissatisfaction with pay seem justified.
Thanks for sharing. Let us know when you have better numbers provided free of charge that we can use instead.
A lot of good ideas here. Other than occasionally repairing a computer on the side for friends and co-workers, I can’t really think of anything I could do. Now my grandfather used to garden and would sell by roadsides and roast/boil peanuts and sell them to local convenience stores to make ends meet.
Excellent, informative post by Josh Katzowitz. Very useful information. Thanks Dr. Dahle !
Any data on DPMs? Specialists/surgeons but definitely in a lower pay bracket than closest match of ortho.
I have read many of the comments above but didn’t see anyone speak to the reason why physicians and dentists need to work so many hours to earn an income that values our contribution. We take the risk of delayed earnings because of years of schooling, the debt that it involves and the risk and cost if we open a solo or group practice. My feeling is that corporate America, in the form of health/dental insurance companies, have controlled reimbursement below the cost of doing business. It has become a given that we work more hours, see more patients per hour and participate with all insurance plans to compensate for low reimbursement. Our cost for staff, rent, and supplies never decrease and often increase much more than the CPI. Insurance company profit doesn’t decrease. How is quality of care? It would be interesting to see some information addressing all this.