New AMGA Survey Reveals Compensation Increases Across All Specialty Groupings

Primary Care Sees Lowest Increase of Any Specialty

Alexandria, VA – In AMGA’s newly released 2024 Medical Group Compensation and Productivity Survey, medical groups and healthcare organizations report an increase in compensation of 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.

Increases in primary care compensation have not been as significant this year as in 2021/22 when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) updated E/M work RVU (wRVU) values, which led to notable increases in compensation indicated in the 2022 and 2023 surveys. For all other specialty types, compensation is rising in step with related productivity.

With data on more than 190 specialties included, the 2024 survey reveals that, compared to the compensation increases in primary care, other physician specialty types had relatively larger increases in compensation.

“This year’s survey results are noteworthy in numerous areas. We are seeing significant productivity increases, which, in essence, drove the compensation increases across specialties,” said Fred Horton, MHA, president, AMGA Consulting, which administers the survey. “Another key finding is that primary care, which has seen strong increases in compensation over the past few years, had the lowest increases of the major specialty categories, as well as negative compensation per wRVU changes. Given the primary care productivity increases, coupled with minimal compensation increases, their compensation/wRVU ratio actually decreased from past years.” 

Results Looking at Top Specialties in Each Major Category

Primary Care 

In a rollup of the top three specialties in primary care (family medicine, internal medicine, and general pediatrics and adolescent medicine), median compensation changed from $298,726 in 2023 to $311,666 in 2024, an increase of 4.3% for these providers. Productivity also increased at a rate of 4.6% (5,840 wRVUs in 2023 to 6,108 wRVUs in 2024), resulting in a compensation/wRVU ratio with minimal negative change.

Medical Specialties (Excluding Hospitalists) 

In a rollup of the top three medical specialties, which include more than 2,000 providers per specialty, median compensation increased more than 8%, while productivity increased almost 9%.

Hospitalist Specialties

While the top medical specialties experienced an increase in compensation roughly equivalent to productivity (8.2% and 8.9% respectively), hospitalists (a large percentage of the medical specialties category) experienced more moderate compensation and productivity growth (~3% and 2.6%, respectively). 

Surgical Specialties

For the top surgical specialties, compensation and productivity increased 4.1% and 3.0%, respectively, with compensation per wRVU growth at 0.4%.

Advanced Practice Clinicians

The increase in median compensation and wRVUs for advanced practice clinicians (APCs) generally follows the pattern of that of physicians, though the impact was mixed across specialty types. APC production increased as much as 12.6% at median. These productivity increases demonstrate that APCs are being utilized as true providers, rather than to simply support physicians. Thus, wRVUs traditionally allotted to physicians are accruing to APCS, who are now more engaged in clinical care.

Additional Survey Insights

Net Collections: Overall median net collections increased 4.3%, which falls lower than the increases seen in compensation (5.3% overall).

Horton stated, “Net collections not keeping pace with necessary compensation growth is a significant challenge for the majority of groups in the country. This issue, especially related to Medicare payment updates, must be addressed in order for organizations to afford necessary increases in compensation without continually relying on a need for providers to see more patients. If not addressed, many groups will soon be in a very challenging position in relation to work-life balance, burnout, and provider satisfaction. The big challenge is how to maintain a provider supply when you continually ask providers to do more to fund increases, rather than funding such increases with collections that keep pace with inflation. This trend of production driving increases in compensation is not sustainable.” 

Growth in productivity driven by early careerists: In several specialties, data indicates a change in wRVUs for newer hires. For example, recently hired (< 2 years) physicians in family medicine produced wRVUs at about 85% of median (versus 78% of median in the 2023 survey).

About the Survey

The 37th edition of the AMGA Medical Group Compensation and Productivity Survey contains data from 459 medical groups, representing over 189,000 providers from 197 physician, advanced practice clinician, and other provider specialties.  To learn more and purchase the survey, visit amga.org/compsurvey.

If you are interested in data on a specific specialty or region, please contact Taylor Martin.

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About AMGA Consulting 

AMGA Consulting assists healthcare organizations in navigating the changing industry environment.   AMGA Consulting builds clients’ organizational capabilities through effective governance, operational improvement, strategic alignment, talent management, provider compensation design, fair market value analysis, and total rewards solutions.

About AMGA

AMGA is a trade association leading the transformation of healthcare in America.  Representing multispecialty medical groups and integrated systems of care, we advocate, educate, innovate, and empower our members to deliver the next level of high performance health.  AMGA is the national voice promoting awareness of our members’ recognized excellence in the delivery of coordinated, high-quality, high-value care.  More than 183,000 physicians practice in our member organizations, delivering care to one in three Americans.  For more information, visit amga.org