Physician pay increased but productivity remained stagnant in 2018

Physician compensation increased in 2018, while changes in productivity remained low, according to American Medical Group Association’s  (AMGA’s) 2019 Medical Group Compensation and Productivity Survey.

The survey, conducted by AMGA’s subsidiary, AMGA Consulting, found that overall physician compensation increased by a median of 2.92%, compared to a 0.89% increase the previous year. Productivity increased by 0.29%, compared to a 1.63% decline in 2017. The data are from 272 medical groups and represent more than 117,000 providers,

“The 2019 survey shows that physician compensation in 2018 rebounded from a stagnant 2017,” said Fred Horton, M.H.A., AMGA Consulting president. “While productivity also increased, it did not increase enough to surpass the decline we saw in last year’s survey, meaning productivity still has not risen since 2016.”

Medical specialties saw an increase of 1.9% in median wRVU production over last year’s survey. The compensation per wRVU
ratio increased by 2.65%, and the overall median compensation was up for medical specialties by 3.39%. A sample of medical specialties with more noticeable changes to the compensation per work RVU ratio are cardiology, dermatology, gastroenterology, hospitalist–internal medicine and psychiatry.