IF YOU THINK that hospitalists with more years of experience are paid more, you’d be (mostly) correct. But if you think that difference in pay is big, think again.
Data from our 2024 Compensation & Career survey that look at how hospitalist experience affects pay show that while more experienced hospitalists are indeed paid more, the difference isn’t huge.
Nonacademic hospitalists who treat adults and have worked between 15 and 19 years, for example, are paid a little over $15,000 a year more than their newbie colleagues who have been in the specialty only four years or less. That difference is only 4%.
At the other end of the experience spectrum, hospitalists with 20-plus years on the job earn slightly less than the mean for nonacademic hospitalists: $333,086. It turns out that the most experienced group of hospitalists earns about $15,000 less than their colleagues with one to four years of experience.
Why? One clue as to why pay for the longest-serving hospitalists is so low may have to do with the bonus amounts these hospitalists receive. While the mean bonus for all hospitalists is $43,448, hospitalists with 20-plus years of experience reported receiving average bonuses of $24,416.
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Experience isn’t the only factor to influence hospitalist compensation: Hospitalists are paid more for seeing more patients, but data show their career satisfaction takes a hit. Read more here.
For more data on how physician compensation is affected by bonuses, patient encounters, shift work and location, see our overview on hospitalist pay.
