Survey: Family medicine earnings steady despite overall growth for physicians

Family physicians may have started 2022 with the COVID-19 Omicron surge, but the year seems to have ended with old issues of regulation, reimbursement, and burnout regaining their attention, according to the results of the Medscape Family Physician Compensation Report 2023.

Average compensation for the specialty, which has risen by 31% since 2015, was stagnant in 2022, showing no growth from the previous year. COVID, at least, had less of an effect on earnings, as 48% of family physicians cited pandemic-related income losses, compared with 64% in 2021, according to those who responded to Medscape’s annual survey, which was conducted from Oct. 2, 2022, to Jan. 17, 2023.

Comments from those respondents covered several areas that were already concerning physicians before the pandemic. One wrote that “decreasing Medicare reimbursement and poor payor mix destroy our income,” and another said that “patients have become rude and come with poor information from social media.” One respondent described the situation this way: “Overwhelming burnout. I had to reduce my hours to keep myself from quitting medicine completely.”

Overall physician compensation in 2022 was up by about 4% from 2021. For the 12% of the 10,011 respondents who practice family medicine, the average held at $255,000, where it had been the year before. Among the other primary care specialists, internists’ earnings were up by almost 4% and pediatricians did almost as well with a 3% increase, while ob.gyns. joined family physicians in the no-growth club, the Medscape results show.

For all physicians, average compensation in 2022 was $352,000, an increase of almost 18% since 2018. “Supply and demand is the biggest driver,” Mike Belkin, JD, of physician recruitment firm Merritt Hawkins, said in an interview. “Organizations understand it’s not getting any easier to get good candidates, and so for the most part, physicians are getting good offers.”

The lack of increase in FPs earnings among internists also included a decline of note: The disparity between mens’ and womens’ compensation dropped from 26% in 2021 to 23% in 2022. The 2022 disparity was only 16% for internists, however, even though family medicine has a considerably larger share of women (49% vs. 40%) among those surveyed, Medscape said.

Satisfaction with their compensation, on the other hand, was higher among the family physicians (50%), compared with internists (43%). In 2022, 55% of family physicians said that they had been fairly paid.

In 2022, FP respondents reported spending an average of 16.7 hours (up from 15.6 hours in 2021) each week on paperwork and administration, just below the survey leaders, physical medicine and rehabilitation (18.5 hours) and nephrology (18.1 hours) but well above anesthesiology, lowest of the 29 specialties at 9.0 hours, and the 2022 average of 15.5 hours for all physicians, Medscape said.

When asked if they would choose medicine again, 72% of family physician respondents and 73% of all physicians said yes, with emergency medicine (65%) and dermatology (86%) representing the two extremes. A question about specialty choice showed that 66% of FPs would choose it again, putting them 28th of the 29 included specialties in their eagerness to follow the same path, above only the internists (61%), Medscape reported.

Commenters among the survey respondents were not identified by specialty, but dissatisfaction on many fronts was a definite theme:

• “Our costs go up, and our reimbursement does not.”
• “Our practice was acquired by venture capital firms; they slashed costs.”
• “My productivity bonus should have come to $45,000. Instead I was paid only $15,000. Yet cardiologists and administrators who were working from home part of the year received their full bonus.”
• “I will no longer practice cookbook mediocrity.”

Family physicians may have started 2022 with the COVID-19 Omicron surge, but the year seems to have ended with old issues of regulation, reimbursement, and burnout regaining their attention, according to the results of the Medscape Family Physician Compensation Report 2023.

Average compensation for the specialty, which has risen by 31% since 2015, was stagnant in 2022, showing no growth from the previous year. COVID, at least, had less of an effect on earnings, as 48% of family physicians cited pandemic-related income losses, compared with 64% in 2021, according to those who responded to Medscape’s annual survey, which was conducted from Oct. 2, 2022, to Jan. 17, 2023.

Comments from those respondents covered several areas that were already concerning physicians before the pandemic. One wrote that “decreasing Medicare reimbursement and poor payor mix destroy our income,” and another said that “patients have become rude and come with poor information from social media.” One respondent described the situation this way: “Overwhelming burnout. I had to reduce my hours to keep myself from quitting medicine completely.”

Overall physician compensation in 2022 was up by about 4% from 2021. For the 12% of the 10,011 respondents who practice family medicine, the average held at $255,000, where it had been the year before. Among the other primary care specialists, internists’ earnings were up by almost 4% and pediatricians did almost as well with a 3% increase, while ob.gyns. joined family physicians in the no-growth club, the Medscape results show.

For all physicians, average compensation in 2022 was $352,000, an increase of almost 18% since 2018. “Supply and demand is the biggest driver,” Mike Belkin, JD, of physician recruitment firm Merritt Hawkins, said in an interview. “Organizations understand it’s not getting any easier to get good candidates, and so for the most part, physicians are getting good offers.”

The lack of increase in FPs earnings among internists also included a decline of note: The disparity between mens’ and womens’ compensation dropped from 26% in 2021 to 23% in 2022. The 2022 disparity was only 16% for internists, however, even though family medicine has a considerably larger share of women (49% vs. 40%) among those surveyed, Medscape said.

Satisfaction with their compensation, on the other hand, was higher among the family physicians (50%), compared with internists (43%). In 2022, 55% of family physicians said that they had been fairly paid.

In 2022, FP respondents reported spending an average of 16.7 hours (up from 15.6 hours in 2021) each week on paperwork and administration, just below the survey leaders, physical medicine and rehabilitation (18.5 hours) and nephrology (18.1 hours) but well above anesthesiology, lowest of the 29 specialties at 9.0 hours, and the 2022 average of 15.5 hours for all physicians, Medscape said.

When asked if they would choose medicine again, 72% of family physician respondents and 73% of all physicians said yes, with emergency medicine (65%) and dermatology (86%) representing the two extremes. A question about specialty choice showed that 66% of FPs would choose it again, putting them 28th of the 29 included specialties in their eagerness to follow the same path, above only the internists (61%), Medscape reported.

Commenters among the survey respondents were not identified by specialty, but dissatisfaction on many fronts was a definite theme:

• “Our costs go up, and our reimbursement does not.”
• “Our practice was acquired by venture capital firms; they slashed costs.”
• “My productivity bonus should have come to $45,000. Instead I was paid only $15,000. Yet cardiologists and administrators who were working from home part of the year received their full bonus.”
• “I will no longer practice cookbook mediocrity.”

Family physicians may have started 2022 with the COVID-19 Omicron surge, but the year seems to have ended with old issues of regulation, reimbursement, and burnout regaining their attention, according to the results of the Medscape Family Physician Compensation Report 2023.

Average compensation for the specialty, which has risen by 31% since 2015, was stagnant in 2022, showing no growth from the previous year. COVID, at least, had less of an effect on earnings, as 48% of family physicians cited pandemic-related income losses, compared with 64% in 2021, according to those who responded to Medscape’s annual survey, which was conducted from Oct. 2, 2022, to Jan. 17, 2023.

Comments from those respondents covered several areas that were already concerning physicians before the pandemic. One wrote that “decreasing Medicare reimbursement and poor payor mix destroy our income,” and another said that “patients have become rude and come with poor information from social media.” One respondent described the situation this way: “Overwhelming burnout. I had to reduce my hours to keep myself from quitting medicine completely.”

Overall physician compensation in 2022 was up by about 4% from 2021. For the 12% of the 10,011 respondents who practice family medicine, the average held at $255,000, where it had been the year before. Among the other primary care specialists, internists’ earnings were up by almost 4% and pediatricians did almost as well with a 3% increase, while ob.gyns. joined family physicians in the no-growth club, the Medscape results show.

For all physicians, average compensation in 2022 was $352,000, an increase of almost 18% since 2018. “Supply and demand is the biggest driver,” Mike Belkin, JD, of physician recruitment firm Merritt Hawkins, said in an interview. “Organizations understand it’s not getting any easier to get good candidates, and so for the most part, physicians are getting good offers.”

The lack of increase in FPs earnings among internists also included a decline of note: The disparity between mens’ and womens’ compensation dropped from 26% in 2021 to 23% in 2022. The 2022 disparity was only 16% for internists, however, even though family medicine has a considerably larger share of women (49% vs. 40%) among those surveyed, Medscape said.

Satisfaction with their compensation, on the other hand, was higher among the family physicians (50%), compared with internists (43%). In 2022, 55% of family physicians said that they had been fairly paid.

In 2022, FP respondents reported spending an average of 16.7 hours (up from 15.6 hours in 2021) each week on paperwork and administration, just below the survey leaders, physical medicine and rehabilitation (18.5 hours) and nephrology (18.1 hours) but well above anesthesiology, lowest of the 29 specialties at 9.0 hours, and the 2022 average of 15.5 hours for all physicians, Medscape said.

When asked if they would choose medicine again, 72% of family physician respondents and 73% of all physicians said yes, with emergency medicine (65%) and dermatology (86%) representing the two extremes. A question about specialty choice showed that 66% of FPs would choose it again, putting them 28th of the 29 included specialties in their eagerness to follow the same path, above only the internists (61%), Medscape reported.

Commenters among the survey respondents were not identified by specialty, but dissatisfaction on many fronts was a definite theme:

• “Our costs go up, and our reimbursement does not.”
• “Our practice was acquired by venture capital firms; they slashed costs.”
• “My productivity bonus should have come to $45,000. Instead I was paid only $15,000. Yet cardiologists and administrators who were working from home part of the year received their full bonus.”
• “I will no longer practice cookbook mediocrity.”