Primary Care Offers on the Rise, Including Salary and Signing Bonuses
The Medicus Firm, a national physician search firm headquartered in Dallas, TX, with additional offices in Atlanta, GA and Boston, MA, released its 2nd annual primary care and advanced practice placement compensation summary report.
The data featured in the report is not obtained from a salary survey, which is subject to user discretion. This primary care placement report is a summary based solely on actual placement records, providing accurate data on the average offers being extended, and accepted by primary care physicians nationwide. The report highlights placement salaries for family practice physicians and internal medicine physicians who were placed with clients of The Medicus Firm in 2016.
"Due to the increased demand for primary care providers, as well as a larger placement volume of primary care physicians in recent years, we created this new report to help hospitals and other physician employers in crafting their primary care offers, including salary and signing bonus," states Jim Stone, president of The Medicus Firm.
Below are a few of the highlights of the primary care salary/offer data from 2016, as compared to that of 2015.
- Average Primary care salary (offered at placement), not including signing bonus, grew from $207, 041 in 2015 to $229,734. (This includes salaries offered to internal medicine and family medicine physicians to practice primary care.)
- Average primary care signing bonuses offered increased from $19,714 in 2015, to $27,799 in 2016. Furthermore, the signing bonus in mid-sized communities almost doubled, from $16,875 to $31,967.
- Compensation offers for primary care physicians are somewhat evenly comparable across community sizes. However, signing bonuses were much higher in rural and mid-sized communities than in larger metro areas.
- The average total compensation package offered to primary care physicians, including signing bonus, increased from $226,755 in 2015, to $257,533 in 2016. This includes family medicine physicians and internal medicine physicians in communities of all sizes, across the country.
- Among internal medicine physicians placed in 2016, those in urban areas saw the greatest increase in total compensation offered, from $237,522 in 2015, to $265,225 in 2016.
- By region, Middle America (Midwestern states) saw the greatest increase in primary care signing bonuses from 2015-2016. PCP signing bonuses in Ohio Valley states (blue region on p.8 map) grew from $18,063-$35,666, and those in Central US/Upper Midwestern states grew from $24,375 in 2015 to $37,353.
- The Central US/Upper Midwest and West/NW regions (red states on map key p.8) showed the steepest increase in total primary care compensation packages, growing by nearly $40,000 in total offer money.
"Primary care has become intensely competitive to the point that hospitals and physician employers are competing with one another on a national scale for physicians, not just regionally or locally," Stone adds. "Even the most popular locales and desirable, high-profile employers may find primary care recruitment significantly challenging. This increased demand is driving up salaries, and especially signing bonuses, for internists and family medicine physicians," he concludes.
For media inquiries, or to set up an interview about the report findings or related primary care trends, please contact Andrea Clement Santiago, Director of Media Relations, [email protected].