Cardiologist salaries in the wake of COVID: 8 key takeaways from a new analysis
When Medscape released its annual physician compensation survey in April, the numbers showed that cardiologists are earning an annual salary of $459,000 in 2021. This represents an increase of nearly 5% for the specialty—no small feat considering the COVID-19 pandemic and its continued impact on the U.S. healthcare system.
On Friday, May 14, Medscape released a 22-page report completely dedicated to cardiologist salaries. These are 8 key findings from that analysis:
1. Despite the overall increase in salaries, 46% of cardiologists reported that they saw their compensation shrink in the last 12 months. A whopping 92% of respondents who saw such a decline attributed it to the pandemic.
2. Cardiologists reported receiving an average incentive bonus of $71,000. While 38% of respondents said they were able to earn their full incentive bonus, another 24% said they earned 76% to 99% of what was potentially available.
3. Cardiologists are confident COVID-related shortfalls will soon be behind them.
“Close to half of cardiologists who suffered financial or practice-related ill effects due to the pandemic expect their income to return to normal this year,” according to the report. “Thirty-eight percent believe it will take two to three years.”
4. Self-employed cardiologists earned approximately $22,000 more than employed cardiologists.
5. Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) was the payment model of choice for 39% of cardiologists. This makes MIPS the most popular option among survey respondents. While 7% reported that they participate in advanced alternative payment models (APMs), another 30% said they remain undecided.
6. The percentage of cardiologists who feel they are fairly compensated was 61%. This puts the specialty in the middle of the pack compared to others included in the survey. The highest percentage recorded was the 79% for oncologists.
7. 22% of cardiologists said that “having so many rules and regulations” is the most challenging aspect of their work. This was the common response. Other popular answers included the long hours (16%) and working within the electronic health record (13%).
8. The percentage of cardiologists who said they would choose the same specialty again was 92%, the same as in 2020. Answers for other specialties ranged from 96% (dermatology) to 67% (public health and preventive medicine).
All data was collected from October 2020 to February 2021. More than 17,000 physicians overall responded to the survey, and 3% of respondents were cardiologists.
Click here for the full analysis.
Michael has more than 18 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.