New report finds Rochester leads the nation in physician pay
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It pays quite well to be a doctor in Minnesota.
Physicians in Rochester are paid more than doctors in any other metropolitan area in the U.S., according to a new report. And doctors in Minneapolis earn the eighth highest salaries.
An annual compensation analysis by Doximity, a network of health care professionals, found that medical doctors in the Rochester metro area make on average $495,532 annually. Rochester maintains its top spot when salaries are adjusted for each city’s cost of living.
Rochester is well known as the home of Mayo Clinic, one of the top medical centers in the country. The southeast Minnesota city is also home to Olmsted Medical Center.
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Minneapolis is among the top 10 metro areas for doctors' earnings as well — at number eight — with physicians in the Twin Cities area earning $453,000 dollars on average.
“As a small market anchored by a leading medical system, Rochester saw an annual growth rate of 8.7 percent —one of the largest increases in physician compensation this year,” writes Doximity in the report.
The Durham and Chapel Hill metro area in North Carolina had the lowest physician pay at $359,000 on average. But, when cost of living was taken into consideration, Boston claimed that spot.
This was the first year Doximity included Rochester in its annual rankings. In past years, it has compared the 50 most populous metro areas, but this year they expanded the analysis to the top 60.
Doximity reported that while physician compensation is rising almost everywhere across the country, there continues to be wide pay gaps in the medical profession. The gender pay gap among physicians has grown wider, and there are also significant pay disparities between doctors who care for adults versus kids.
And while doctors may be earning more, it may not feel like it for many of them. The report found that physician compensation has not kept pace with inflation in recent years. And the modest growth in salaries comes amid significant cuts to Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement rates.
