By Dan Miller, WCI Contributor
While not all doctors go into medicine solely to make a lot of money, there's no denying that their potential income plays a part in the outlook of many physicians. Many, if not most, doctors make a healthy income, but they also have to deal with higher-than-average costs, such as disability insurance, malpractice insurance, and student loans (where they might have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars). While an average person may not realize this, most in the medical field understand that there is a wide range in salary and income between different specialties in the medical field—like, for instance, the salaries of pediatricians vs. plastic surgeons.
Last year, Medscape gathered data from more than 10,000 physicians in more than 29 different specialties and created the Compensation Report for Pediatricians and many other medical specialties. Pediatricians shared information about how much they earn, whether they supplement their salary with other income, and their overall outlook on the field. If you're a medical school student investigating pediatrics, this can provide helpful data to understand what you can expect. If you're already in pediatrics, you can use this information to see where you fit among others in the field.
Pediatrician Average Salary
According to the Medscape report, the average salary for pediatric doctors in 2023 was $251,000, a $7,000 raise from the previous year. This puts them at the bottom range among the medical specialties that were surveyed, only slightly above Public Health and Preventative Medicine doctors.
This probably does not come as a surprise to those familiar with the field, as pediatrics has a reputation for being (relatively) lower paying.
Is Pediatrician Income Rising?
While income for pediatricians is at the lower end of the scale, the same is not necessarily true for the year-over-year income. On average, pediatricians reported that their income rose 3% compared to 2022, an average that was in the middle range of all fields that were surveyed. It wasn't a huge raise, but it was better than plenty of other specialties.
From 2021 to 2022, though, pediatricians had reported that their income rose by 10%.
More information here:
Is Being a Pediatrician Worth It?
Do Pediatricians Have Incentive Bonuses?
In the past, Medscape has reported that nearly 60% of surveyed physicians have some sort of incentive program. But once again, the pediatricians who were surveyed were the lowest subgroup in terms of receiving an annual incentive bonus.
While those in orthopedics could make six figures in incentive bonuses, pediatricians made about one-quarter of that. In the previous year, pediatricians made $28,000 in average incentive bonuses, so at least they got a little bit of a bump in 2023.
Do Pediatricians Feel Fairly Compensated?
It may not come as a surprise since pediatrics fell near the bottom of the overall compensation figures, but pediatricians also report not feeling fairly compensated at a higher rate than other doctors.
Only 45% of surveyed pediatricians reported feeling fairly compensated, placing them ahead of only a few other specialties. In the prior year, 47% of pediatricians felt fairly compensated.
Interestingly, even though pediatricians actually make more money than Public Health and Preventative Medicine doctors, the latter group overwhelmingly feels that they're treated more fairly than pediatricians.
Even a low-paid pediatrician still makes much more money than the average US worker, but it still can be tough. Especially since the lifestyle of an average pediatrician probably won't be as lavish as a plastic surgeon or a cardiologist. You don't get a pass on math. The less you make and the more of your income that you spend, the longer it will take to reach your financial goals.
But remember that a pediatrician family still will have enough income that, if managed well, will provide a wonderful life during the career and still allow for retirement at traditional retirement age without ever feeling financially deprived.
More information here:
Financial Advice for ‘Low-Income’ Doctors
Other Sources
The Medscape survey is not the end-all and be-all of physician salary data. There are other sources out there, and our recommended contract review firms use them to help ensure you are getting paid what you're worth. Other average salary numbers you can find from surveys done in the last year or two include:
- MGMA: $232,409
- AAMC: $220,000 (this survey only includes academics)
- Doximity: $242,832
- Merritt Hawkins: $236,000
- AMGA: $257,432
Increasing Your Physician Income
One of the most important things that you can do to earn more for your work is to negotiate your pay and the terms of your contract. Many doctors wind up with bad contracts that leave them improperly compensated, facing high costs and non-compete agreements that restrict their future opportunities.
If you’re negotiating a new contract, The White Coat Investor has a list of vetted attorneys and law firms to work with to make sure you get a good deal.
If you're a pediatrician, do these numbers track with your experience? Did anything surprise you with these numbers? How could you go about making more money?
I think it would a great opportunity of WCI members participate anonymously in an honest and accurate salary survey per specialty per hour. It would probably be the most accurate in the industry , since you can control most of the crazy variables that make the information in the public domain pretty useless.
We’ve thought about it, but the problem is the biased sample. WCI readers are far more likely to have a higher income due to paying attention to their income and caring more about finance than the average doc. Not sure how we’d get around that.
The correct answer to the question…”How much does a pediatrician make?’ is….
NOT ENOUGH!
My child has cystic fibrosis and autism. My pediatrician was a Saint. (Died at t from cardiac event).
I am a physician who chose a specialty that makes more money, but I really believe these primary care doctors deserve as much as I make!
These guys take care of our kids so we need to demand that their compensation is as much as an emergency room physician ( talking to you Dr. Dahle!)… and every other high paying specially doc out there. We are the only ones that can make this happen through Medicaid at the state level!
General Pediatricians deserve to make as much money as any other specialty. They saved my child’s life (cystic fibrosis) and may save your child’s life. They work as hard as any of us , and harder than some of us. Myself included. Think about it.
Please don’t try to convince me otherwise!
My pediatrician died at 58 years of age and spend his entire career, over 30 years, fighting for my child and children l Ike mine!
Please call your local Congressman or US Senator. We need to increase compensation for Primary Care, including pediatricians!
How do you suggest we “make this happen?” I feel pretty powerless to change the income of physicians if it involves getting state Medicaids to somehow make larger payments. Just by complaining to politicians? Maybe that’s enough.
As a taxpayer / pediatrician, I feel conflicted about Medicaid patients.
These families have no recourse if they do not show up (we cannot bill for a no-show visit), and firing them when it’s not the child’s fault is hard. We have no-show rules, but we make exceptions with special needs kids, parents with mental health issues.
Suggestion: lobby that Medicaid patients must make their appointments or face a consequence (something fair). If I miss a medical appointment, I’m charged $100+ as no-show.
Most of these families make their visits and are kind people. With 2-3 no-show well child visits per day some days, it adds up. Plus Medicaid reimbursement is much less.
How about $84,000 a year salary for 0.5 full time employment for a pediatric subspecialty that was six years of training after medical school…this is the salary in 2024!
“It’s a calling”
🙂
It’s also a choice, as these comments show that in pediatrics there are ways to make more money. Pick up an extra shift a week in general peds? I suspect there is a spouse income that makes earning money not necessary.
I’m a full time pediatrician employed by a rural community hospital, post-training for 1 decade.
Compensation is about 10% less than Pediatrics average above.
Contract last updated Q1 2022 (every 3 years). At that time my salary went up by 20% (thanks for professional contract help, including MGMA data).
More details (for WCI poll!):
Office is LCOL , 4.5 clinic days, occasional hospital patients or newborns. I probably average 16 patients per day.
60-70% are Medicaid insured.
PTO is 4 weeks, including holidays. I could probably ask for more but that would affect RVUs.
There is RVU production bonus… at best, I get a 4-figure bonus yearly, never close to the $31k above.
I’m a pediatrician in a large private practice about 10 years out of training. Last year my total compensation was about $800,000 which includes partnership income, health insurance and retirement contributions. I work 4-5 days per week, see about 35 patients per day. There is a large intra-specialty pay differential in pediatrics depending on practice location, payer mix, academic vs. community setting and ownership status.
Wow! Well done.
This sounds about right. I limit my patient number to 28/day and I am about $650K / year. Every spot on my schedule is worth about $5K a year. If I added 8 more spots four days a week that would put me about $800K/ year. It really depends on your employment situation.
For those in private practice peds with much higher than avg total compensation, how did you go about finding your current job?
I’m in a HCOL area, and the private practice positions I’ve interviewed at have a total compensation that’s just ~MGMA average (225-250k).
Most of the best paying “jobs” involve some ownership. If you just want to be an employee, expect to be paid like it.
Long time WCI reader…. Thank you, Jim, for all the insights over the years!
Midwest Pediatrician here (19-year career, partner in my practice, working 4, 8-hour days per week) in a very nice LCOL area. We own 3 offices, employ 9 providers at each location (mix of 70% MD’s and 30% NP’s) and own all three buildings in LLC’s. Offices are open Mon -Fri (8a to 8p) and weekends (noon – 3pm). On staff at 2 hospitals for newborn/NICU care (we see 7 patients per day on average). Here’s my breakdown (average over last 3 years):
1. Partner salary, annual – $250,000
2. Partner bonus, annual – $200,000
3. Building LLC Dividends, annual – $50,000 (will triple when all buildings paid off in a few years)
4. Health Insurance stipend, annual – $15,000
5. HSA stipend, annual, $1000
6. 401k match plus end of year profit sharing, annual $ 30,000
Total annual compensation – $546,000
Owning our 3 buildings was one of the best decisions we ever made. Yes, painful upfront to put down the 20% equity needed to build (especially after just paying off my $ 178,000 in student loans) but the investment was recouped in 4 years’ time. Upon retirement, I will remain a limited partner in the 3 LLCs to earn the annual dividend of approximately $ 150,000 per year as all buildings will be paid off by 2029.
I agree wholeheartedly with SL above that pediatrician salaries vary GREATLY with respect to demographics, practice type (academic vs private practice), ownership vs employed provider, office hours offered and willingness to be on hospital staff. There are many ways to increase the pediatrician’s compensation so long as one can stomach the growing pains of doing so.
I think I get paid pretty well as a part time pediatrician considering I don’t do any procedures (by choice), no hospital call, only 1 Saturday morning clinic every month or less-otherwise no weekends, generous vacation time, a lot of time with my own kids, excellent retirement benefits, and I have wonderful patients and partners. There’s also a bit of “status” with being a pediatrician in our area (which makes me chuckle). Seems the adults docs are intimidated by our patients.
As my husband frequently says, “We’re living the dream.” I am very thankful. Peds is a wonderful profession.
I am a pediatrician for almost 20 years. I feel I work hard, am committed to my patients and fight hard for them. I will never be compensated enough. I never thought I would have to worry about having enough money to pay my bills but here I am in private practice and struggling. I am ready to leave medicine. It has only given me debt and worry. When will the ‘institution’ figure out we deserve better?
I’d start by talking to all these folks making 2X+ the average pediatrician income and see what they’re doing and then determine if I was willing to do that.
I unfortunately find this data kind of data mostly useless. I know part-time general pediatricians making under $200k working 2-3 days a week. I also know pediatric critical care doctor working 1.4 fte and pulling in $600k. In this survey, they would both be listed as “ pediatricians.”
Until Medscape starts dividing out pediatric data by specialty and how much they work, the data is kind of useless.
MGMA is much more granular and benchmarks to 1 FTE …. But you have to pay for it. I suspect that is why the MGMA data above is lower, because that is probably general pediatrics only whereas the specialties bring the Medscape number up.
As a sidenote, the person who posted making $800,000 in an office-based practice is making me second-guess my fellowship 👏
Med students: do not choose pediatrics..
18 years of experience, moved from Pacific Northwest where I was a partner making $230k. It was fine. We were fine. Vacationed when I wanted to. Sole bread winner and it was still fine.
Now in major Texas Metro. Latest offer: 4 days per week plus one weekend in rotation. $175. No paid health insurance in a state where I cannot purchase a PPO plan individually and the plan they offer is $1800/month for my family in the highest tiered PPO… No employer contribution. 8 days PTO per year. There is a partnership track but they can’t tell me for certain when/if they will offer it and that is 5 years once you are on it. But it’s better than the first offer I received at a different practice which was $150k, only employed with no upward mobility and a RIDICULOUS non compete.
I don’t want goddamn $600k a year. I would like my dignity.
I repeat, do not go into general pediatrics and do not go live in a big city. You will be dismissed and your job will be given to a APP if you don’t accept peanuts
I’m sorry to heqr this is happening to you. I’ll bet there are better options out there though. Are you willing to relocate?
Thank you, was feeling very frustrated last night as my options feel slim. We just moved to Texas last summer (family reasons) so although I’d love to move out of the area for this and a multitude of other reasons, it’s not gonna happen likely.
Honestly I felt like we were comfortable and quite rich with a take-home of low to mid 200s depending on the year. There were 6 physicians and no extenders, and we didn’t make money off other providers. Total transparency. Other headaches yes, but I miss the set up.
Thanks for listening
Hopefully something good happens that will make the situation better for you soon.