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Ask the experts: How much weight should I put into national data on hospitalist compensation?

Hospitalist Leadership Connection, August 11, 2010

There are a variety of surveys that give benchmarks on national salary averages for hospitalists. They include surveys from the Society of Hospital Medicine, Today’s Hospitalist, the Medical Group Management Association, and Sullivan Cotter and Associates.

To determine a hospitalist’s base salary, hospitalist program managers, medical directors, and CEOs should take survey data with a grain of salt, says Kirk Mathews, MBA, CEO, principal, and founder of Inpatient Management, Inc. For example, a survey may establish that the average hospitalist salary in the Midwest is $165,000. “That doesn’t take into account that in St. Louis, I can hire a resident for $175,000, but in West Plains, MO, which is isolated, I’m not going to get an interview if I offer less than $225,000,” says Mathews. “You have to look at what the docs are making in your community and use common sense when applying benchmarks.”

Not sure whether your hospitalist program is culturally competitive with neighboring programs? Sylvia Cheney McKean, MD, FACP, former director of the hospitalist service at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, suggests asking other hospitalist program directors in your area how their programs are scheduled and what they offer for pay. McKean suggests analyzing SHM data for your region and networking at SHM chapter and annual meetings. “You can talk in general terms and say that the starting salary for a hospitalist right out of residency is X and that person is expected to work X hours per week.”

McKean says that with the advent of SHM, national benchmarking is now a breeze, but she cautions against relying only on national data. “You have to benchmark locally because what is happening in your area may be very different than what is happening nationally.”

To read more on hospitalist compensation, refer to “Hospitalist recruitment and retention trends: Put a twist on traditional compensation packages to entice candidates and keep them” (login required), published in the March issue of the Medical Staff Briefing newsletter.

 

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