While many physician specialties have seen salary increases in recent years, those increases are being felt less by physicians.
Ten specialties saw year-over-year salary increases between 7.2% and 12.4%, according to Doximity's Physician Compensation report released in May.
Despite this growth in salary, 35% of physicians said that they were unsatisfied with their current compensation. Another 62% said that their current pay did not reflect their level of expertise and the amount of effort required in their job.
One aspect of this dissatisfaction is physicians' pay relative to inflation. According to the most recent data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation has increased 2.6% since October 2023. For the 13 specialties that saw compensation increases under 3% — which includes cardiology, gastroenterology and general surgery — increases in compensation are stretched thinner. This impact is magnified in specialties that saw pay decreases, such as orthopedics.
Reimbursement rates have also seen consistent declines for the last several years. On Nov. 1, CMS finalized a 2.83% cut to the 2025 physician payment rule, which has been met with outcry from advocacy groups and independent physicians alike.
"Physician reimbursement continues to lag behind inflation, and this next set of cuts by CMS will only further rub salt in the wound," Tan Chen, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at Wilkes Barre, Pa.-based Geisinger Health, told Becker's. "These consecutive cuts are simply not sustainable for many practices and will ultimately further drive away Medicaid patients from receiving quality and specialized care."
The 2025 cuts are also being felt in specialties that saw salary increases between 2023 and 2024, like anesthesiology. The 2025 anesthesia conversion factor, for example, will be $20.31, representing a 2.20% decrease from 2024.
Some physicians are concerned that these cuts could continue to worsen the U.S. physician shortage.
"While I believe that containing healthcare costs is a very important strategy in keeping overall government expenditures under control, I am concerned that increasing the cost burden on physicians is taking a toll in the recruitment and retention of physicians, especially in light of the U.S. facing an anesthesiologist shortage which is projected to be about 6,300 anesthesiologists short in 2035," Rick Richter, MD, of Anesthesia Associates of Rock Hill, S.C., told Becker's. "And we are a specialty that is attractive to medical students seeking a specialty; imagine what this means for the primary care specialties such as family practice!"
Dr. Richter also expressed concern that ongoing cuts could chip away at physician independence and push more physicians toward employed settings.
"These cuts will also continue to erode physicians' autonomy in delivering healthcare to US citizens, making them more reliant on healthcare systems to employ them," he said. "Moreover, these cuts will continue to have a devastating impact on the private practice physician model in the U.S. and may very well drive it to extinction. Overall, I believe it will eventually have a negative impact on the overall health and wellbeing of community health in the U.S."