Your peers across wide swaths of the country are seeing financial losses, while average physician compensation increased only 2.4% in 2010, according to a recent survey by the American Medical Group Association (AMGA). The data is very similar to 2010 findings by another major physician advocacy group, the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA).
Compared to 2.4% for the AMGA, our analysis of MGMA’s member survey showed a roughly 2.2% increase in average physician compensation in 2010. We didn’t break the data down by region, though you can pick up the MGMA’s full report, the 2011 “Physician Compensation and Production Survey,” from their website.
The AMGA found that only medical groups in the Western region were near break-even financially, operating at a net loss of -$27 per physician, while the Eastern region averaged $1,597 per physician and the Northern region fared worst at -$10,669 per physician.
NOTE: These losses don’t tell the whole story. “Much of the losses we see in 2010 are supplemented by other non-clinical revenue sources and/or funding from health systems with which groups are associated,” explained Donald W. Fisher, president and CEO of the AMGA, in a prepared statement.
About 70% of specialties saw an increase in physician compensation, with primary care seeing a 2.6% increase and surgical specialties seeing 3.8%. You can read the full AMGA release here.