Survey: Salaries for Hospital-Based Physicians to Rise in 2013

Physicians can expect slightly higher salary increases in 2013—2.6 percent increases, compared with 2.5 percent increases received in 2012—according to results from Hay Group’s 2012 Physician Compensation Survey. Survey results indicate that physicians working in group-based practices can expect the largest pay increases (3.0 percent), while those working in hospital-based settings can expect the smallest increases (2.0 percent). According to the survey, the use of employment contracts continued to grow in 2012 for both hospital-based and physician group practices. In hospitals, 70 percent of physicians had employment contracts, compared to 64 percent in 2011. In group-based practices, 67 percent of physicians had employment contracts, while only 56 percent had contracts in 2011. Survey results also indicate that quality and patient satisfaction measures are used most frequently for incentive payouts. For individual performance metrics, 77 percent of organizations reported that they used “quality” as a metric, and 66 percent relied on “patient satisfaction” to measure physician performance. Conversely, only 39 percent reported “outcomes” as a performance metric for physicians.