Have radiologists' salaries kept up with their workloads? New survey offers detailed insight
The American Medical Group Association’s 35th annual survey of physician productivity and compensation recently provided some interesting insight into how radiologists’ workloads and salaries have fared in the wake of the pandemic.
The survey offers a look at compensation and compensation relative to work units (wRVU) across a wide range of medical specialties—177 to be exact—including both diagnostic and interventional radiology. Also taken into consideration when breaking down the data were the changes CMS made to its wRVU schedule in 2021, which AMGA Consulting president Fred Horton, MHA, explained made analyzing the data challenging but of immense value for medical groups managing their physicians’ compensation packages.
“We were able to isolate the two impacts since we collected our data on both a 2020 and 2021 basis. The value in having both sets of wRVU data ensured accuracy in the results and provided a deeper insight into the market trends. There was significant variety in how groups transitioned their compensation plans to take into account the new wRVU weights,” Horton said. “As a result, given the combined exponential impact of recovery, plus the new weights, medical groups must be careful to utilize both a correct methodology and correct data when managing their provider compensation plans.”
A common trend spotted in the data is that physicians across the board have received a median increase of 3.7% from 2020 to 2021. However, a median increase of 18.3% in productivity consequently dropped the value of wRVUs by 11%.
The salary increases for diagnostic radiologists fell below the national average from 2020 to 2021, rising just 1.6%. In comparison, interventional radiologists’ compensation rose by 9.9% during that same period. Additionally, wRVU value decreased for diagnostic radiologists by 4.4%, while interventional rads received a boost of 11.6% per wRVU.
Unique to radiologists is that their workloads have not yet declined to the pre-pandemic levels seen in 2019 like other specialties have started to witness, explains Elizabeth Siemsen, Director of AMGA Consulting:
“Unlike most other specialties, the radiology trends have not returned to their pre-pandemic levels. When you consider that compensation has continued to increase, particularly for interventional radiology, it’s understandable to see that compensation per wRVU has remained high. The compensation median for the interventional category was nearly 10% higher in 2021 than it was in 2020, despite a wRVU decline.”
Siemsen also pointed out that the CMS wRVU weight changes have had “no effect” on the medians.
View AMGA’s full release here.
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In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She joined Innovate Healthcare in 2021 and has since put her unique expertise to use in her editorial role with Health Imaging.