Starting salaries for specialty physicians in the United States are on the rise, according to a new report from AMN Healthcare’s Physician Solutions division. This isn’t true for all specialties, however; cardiologists saw their annual starting salaries drop by approximately 10% year over year.
AMN Healthcare, a Dallas-based healthcare recruitment firm, based its report on a representative sample of more than 2,600 search engagements from April 2022 to March 2023. Access to the full report is available here.
Starting salaries surge among specialists
One key difference between AMN Healthcare’s report and other similar surveys in that it tracks starting salaries as opposed to total annual compensation. This highlights the terms physicians are agreeing to when they accept a job offer, offering a fresh perspective on the recruitment process.
Overall, starting salaries were flat or slightly down year over year for most primary care physicians. However, a majority of specialists—including psychiatrists, radiologists, anesthesiologists and others—saw their annual starting salary increase compared to the previous year.
“Rising physician starting salaries are a clear sign that demand for physicians is surging,” Leah Grant, president of AMN Healthcare Physician Solutions, said in a prepared statement. “Virtually every hospital in the United States, and many other entities, are seeking physicians.”
Cardiology, on the other hand, is one of a small number of specialties that watched its starting salaries go in the opposite direction year over year. The average starting salary in cardiology was $433,000 in 2022/23, down from $484,000 in 2021/22. The lowest and highest starting salaries in cardiology also decreased from one year to the next. In fact, the highest starting salary reported for a cardiologist was $1 million in 2021/22, but just $584,000 in 2022/23.
Interventional cardiology, meanwhile, saw its starting salaries decrease by approximately 2% year over year.
What led to this change in cardiologist salaries? According to the team at AMN Healthcare, that stands as a bit of a mystery. The company described it as a “one-year vagary” more than anything else; cardiologists have no reason to be concerned quite yet. If the trend continues for another year, however, it may be time to dig deeper into the data and explore what could be happening beneath the surface. For now, cardiologists will have to settle for the fact that recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that they earn the highest annual salary in the United States.
Demand for cardiologists remains high
Even with these shrinking starting salaries in mind, AMN Healthcare’s analysis did contain some good news for cardiologists: Their services remain in high demand. According to the report, which tracks demand by exploring how many requests AMN Healthcare received to recruit each specialty, cardiology is tied with gastroenterology as healthcare’s No. 8 most sought-after specialty. Specialties finishing ahead of cardiology (and gastroenterology) were nurse practitioner, family medicine, radiology, obstetrics/gynecology, anesthesiology, psychiatry and internal medicine.
The healthcare industry has been bracing for a cardiologist shortage for years now, and more and more physicians are retiring every day. So, it seems safe to think cardiologists will remain in high demand for years to come.
Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.