Story at-a-glance
- Highest-earning specialties in 2023 include Plastic Surgery ($619K), Orthopedics ($573K), and Cardiology ($507K).
- Lowest-earning fields include Public Health ($249K), Pediatrics ($251K), and Family Medicine ($255K)—often in non-profits or public sectors.
- Location matters: Doctors in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Georgia earned more than peers in Maryland, Colorado, and Massachusetts.
- Pay variation is wide, especially between subspecialists and generalists—surgical specialists often far out-earn their non-surgical counterparts.
- These income ranges help guide how much disability insurance coverage you should consider, especially early in your career.
Want to know how your medical specialty is getting paid? The 2023 Medscape Physician Compensation Report is out. Here are some of the key findings:
The five highest earning medical specialties are:
- Plastic Surgery: $619,000
- Orthopedics: $573,000
- Cardiology: $507,000
- Urology: $501,000
- Gastroenterology: $501,000
The five lowest earning medical specialties are:
- Public Health & Preventative Medicine: $249,000
- Pediatrics: $251,000
- Family Medicine: $255,000
- Infectious Diseases: $262,000
- Rheumatology: $281,000
The ER docs are earning $352,000 and the critical care types are making $406,000 on average. And yes, urologists are out-earning OB/GYNs by a healthy margin – $506,000 to $337,000.
These are median earnings, and so There’s quite a bit of variation in the numbers, no doubt. For example, a lot of pediatricians, family medicine practitioners and HIV and infectious disease specialist are working for government and non-profits. These doctors are compensated in other ways. For example, they may qualify for a generous public traditional pension plan often not available to other doctors – unless it’s self-funded using annuities.
Doctors working for non-profits or government agencies may also qualify for student loan forgiveness over ten years.
Many of the higher earning doctors are relatively low-density in public health clinics, and tend to concentrate in private practice.
Specialties such as orthopedics and cardiology also include surgical specialists and non-surgeons. The surgical subspecialists make way more than the median listed here. So there are non-subspecialist cardiologist earning something closer to the middle of the pack.
These are the top five markets for doctors
- Wisconsin: $397,000
- Indiana: $372,000
- Georgia: $363,000
- Connecticut: $362,000
- Missouri: $361,000
The lowest-earning states:
- Maryland: $306,000
- Colorado: $327,000
- Virginia: $330,000
- Massachusetts: $331,000
- Arizona: $334,000
If you’re just starting out, these numbers can give you a reasonable idea of how much disability insurance coverage might be a good planning number for you.
You can read more details here.
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