Radiology ranks tops among specialties with physicians worth more than $5M

In a pandemic-stricken year that saw many practices suffer imaging volume losses, radiologists still maintained their position as one of the wealthiest physician specialties, according to an annual report from Medscape.

Seven percent of the radiology workforce is worth more than $5 million, ranking second only behind internal medicine (9%) and tied with cardiology and orthopedics & orthopedic surgery. Overall doc compensation held steady, fluctuating from $346,000 in 2020 to $344,000 in this year’s report.

“Somewhat surprisingly, physician income on average ended up fairly on par with the previous year,” the report read. “Although many medical offices were closed for a period of time in 2020, some physicians made use of the Paycheck Protection Program; others cut staff, renegotiated leases, switched to telemedicine visits, and made other cost-cutting changes that kept earning relatively on par.”

The findings are part of Medscape’s annual Physician Wealth & Debt Report which surveyed nearly 18,000 providers across more than 29 specialties. Out of that total, 4% or about 716 were radiologists who responded to the 10-minute survey between October 6, 2020, and February 11, 2021.

Radiology ranked middle of the pack for providers worth less than $500,000, tied with a number of other specialties including cardiology, pathology and critical care. Family medicine sits atop that list (18% of physicians) followed closely by internal medicine. Both groups, however, also had the highest number of survey respondents.

Most docs cited a mortgage as their largest expense (64%), followed by car loans (37%) and college or medical school loans (25%). On that same note, 20% of rads indicated they were putting money toward college loans, ranking 19th.

You can read more from the survey first published on June 11 here.