How much are doctors paid?
More than 1.75 times as much as USAFacts readers think.
How much do you think the average doctor earns per year? We asked our newsletter readers, and the plurality guessed $200,050.
In reality, the average doctor earned $350,000 in individual total income in 2017 —about 1.75 times what most people guessed. (All figures in this article come from IRS data analyzed by five economists.) In fact, the top 1% of physicians in the United States earned an average of $4 million per year, with much of that income coming from business ownership and capital gains.
What states pay doctors the most?
The average income of a doctor may be surprising; so might be the map of doctor earnings. Before we get to the full map of doctor incomes nationwide, let’s take a brief detour on wealth in the United States.
Wealth in America tends to cluster on the coasts. Some of the richest states in median household income are Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington state, and California.
And for many professions, average incomes by state look a lot like average wealth of the state.
Take lawyers. In 2017, the best-paid lawyers tended to live in New York, Connecticut, and California — some of the highest-income states in the US. The lowest-paid lawyers tended to live in West Virginia, Kentucky, and New Mexico — some of the poorest states in America (by median household income).
The average lawyer in New York earns more than three times as much as the average lawyer in Alaska
Average lawyer earnings by state, 2017
But doctors break the rule.
The highest-paid doctors live in … South Dakota. Would you have guessed that? South Dakota, where the average physician earned $432,800, is a state with below-average median household income ($56,521 in 2017)
Meanwhile, Washington, DC, and Hawaii — two of the richest places in America — have some of the lowest average physician earnings nationwide. Statistically, there is no relationship between a state’s median household income and its average doctor income.
The average physician in South Dakota earns nearly twice as much as the average physician in Vermont
Average physician earnings by state, 2017
Why do doctor salaries vary so much by state?
Some of the differences in pay by state can be explained by Medicare reimbursement rates. Medicare pays different rates for services in different parts of the country, attempting to correct for costs of inputs, such as rent and labor. However, scholars have found that these reimbursement rates only imperfectly match cost of living, giving an implicit subsidy to doctors in some parts of the country. In one analysis, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found the structure of Medicare reimbursements increases payments to providers in rural areas, in particular.
What doctor specialities pay the most?
Location isn’t the only factor that influences how much doctors are paid. Specialty plays a big role as well.
Topping the list of high-earning physicians are neurosurgeons, with an average income of $623,500. At the bottom of the list are family medicine doctors, who earn on average $192,800.
That’s more than a threefold difference — within the same profession.
The average neurosurgeon earns 3x more than the average family medicine doctor.
Average physician earnings by specialty, 2017
Why do doctor salaries vary so much by specialty?
One predictor of how much specialist doctors earn is how long they train. The average family medicine doctor trains for 3.8 years, whereas the average neurosurgeon trains for 6.7 years. Every extra year spent in training correlates to an additional $143,000 in yearly earnings.
Another predictor of specialists’ income is hours worked. According to the American Community Survey, neurosurgeons average 63.6 hours a week, compared with 47.4 for family medicine doctors. Each additional 10 hours per week of work is associated with about $195,000 more in annual earnings. Yet some specialties combine shorter hours with high pay — dermatologists, for instance, work 43.9 hours per week while earning $456,900 on average.
The average neurosurgeon works 45% more hours than the average dermatologist.
Average physician hours worked per week by specialty, 2005-2017
Every subspecialty of doctor works more hours per week than the average full-time employed American, who works about 41.6 hours per week.
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