Forewarned is forearmed: Using comparable compensation data in employment contract negotiations

For many employed physicians (and there are an increasing number of you), the annual rite of contract negotiations with payers has given way to the annual rite of contract negotiations with employers. One of the key elements in those negotiations is compensation.

The driving concern will be whether you are being compensated fairly, and solving that riddle means knowing whether the compensation you’re being offered is comparable to that of physicians in your region with similar skills and experience.

But, where can you find that information? One option is national medical specialty societies. For instance, the American Academy of Family Physicians has data on individual income (before taxes) of family physicians segmented by employment status, primary employer, practice size, number of years since residency, region, and primary location (i.e., metropolitan versus non-metropolitan).

Another option is data published by trade groups such as the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) and recruiting firms like Merritt-Hawkins. Those data have their limitations, but to the extent that physicians’ employers are consulting them already, it is often useful for physicians to be aware of them too.

Knowing what other physicians in similar circumstances are earning is no guarantee that you will earn the same. However, as Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the United Nations once observed, “Knowledge is power. Information is liberating.”

– Kent Moore, Senior Strategist for Physician Payment for the American Academy of Family Physicians