Pay for doctors increases as post-pandemic patients return

Doctors are working harder for more pay as patients return for care unlike anything doctors’ offices have seen since the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic.

A new report from the American Medical Group Association (AMGA) shows that average compensation for primary care physicians eclipsed $300,000 for the first time for such physicians, including family practice, internal medicine and general pediatrics specialties. Meanwhile, pay increases for medical and surgical specialties grew even faster than for primary care.

The AMGA report reflects increased physician productivity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, including office closures in 2020, while the virus and associated fears prevented patients from seeing their doctors regularly in 2022 and 2023. President Biden ended last year’s U.S. public health emergency in May.

While primary care physicians are growing in importance as the primary care provider most commonly seen by patients, the end of the pandemic era, flat to declining wage growth, has had an even greater impact on specialists. AMGA reports that compensation increased “3.6% for primary care specialties, 5.1% for medical specialties, 5.5% for surgical specialties and 5.8% for radiology, anesthesiology and pathology specialties in 2023.”

“We are seeing significant increases in productivity, which have essentially driven the increase in wages within the specialties,” said Fred Horton, president of AMGA Consulting, which is administering the study.

In a sign of the shift away from pandemic-era care, telehealth visits that have reached unprecedented levels have declined while pent-up demand for care is boosting physician productivity in practices across the country, MGMA compensation analysts say. “Telehealth visits are declining and more people are returning to seeking care in physician offices,” Mike Coppola, chief operating officer of AMGA Consulting, said in an interview.

Coppola and Horton say health care systems and other organizations are working with younger physicians to meet their scheduling needs.

“Younger physicians are producing at a higher rate than in the past,” Horton said in an interview. “Organizations have become more flexible in scheduling patients.”

AMGA data, which includes data from 459 medical groups representing more than 189,000 healthcare providers, shows that physician office visits increased 3% overall from the group’s 2023 survey to this year’s report.

“Before Covid, productivity was largely flat,” the AMGA report says. “From the research year 2017-2020 (annual data 2016-2019), productivity for all specialties changed on average 0.2% per year. Excluding the Covid years (2021 and 2022), the 2023 survey showed an increase of almost 3%, while this year there was an overall productivity increase of 5%.”

For example, the number of primary care visits per physician increased an average of 1.9% this year to 3,340, compared to 3,278 the year before.

“We are seeing an increase in patient visits from last year to the current year,” the AMGA compensation analysis shows. “Primary care patient visits, which serve as a litmus test for engagement with the overall patient population, increased by an average of 1.9%.”