March 12, 2025
Patient encounters per shift: Who has the highest volume?
Who in hospital medicine has the most patient encounters per shift? Data from our most recent survey found that on average, hospitalists have 16.3 patient encounters per shift. Adult hospitalists have slightly higher patient volumes (16.5) than pediatric hospitalists (14.0), and nonacademic hospitalists post higher numbers (16.8) than their peers in academia (15.7). To see which hospitalists have the most—and least—patient encounters per shift, see coverage from our annual survey.
February 26, 2025
How does working more shifts boost your pay?
Look at data from the Today’s Hospitalist Compensation & Career Survey, and you’ll see that how many shifts hospitalists work each month plays a big role in how much they’re paid. The difference between hospitalists working the fewest hours and the most hours, in fact, comes in at about $80,000. Some of the differences in pay based on the number of shifts hospitalists work are more subtle, but they are still significant. Working 14 to 16 shifts a month, for example, brings hospitalists an average of $26,000 more than their colleagues working under 14 shifts a month. For more on how shifts per month worked affects hospitalist pay, see coverage of our survey.
July 10, 2024
A first since the pandemic: Fewer than half of docs report burnout
For the first time since the covid pandemic, the number of physicians reporting burnout in an AMA survey dropped below 50%. A Fierce Healthcare report said the AMA’s survey results from 2023 show that 48.2% of U.S. physicians reported experiencing at least one symptom of burnout. That percentage peaked in 2021 at 62.8% and fell to 53% in 2022. The AMA survey also found that physician job satisfaction jumped from 68% in 2022 to 72.1% in 2023, and the number of physicians who said they feel valued by their organization went from 46.3% in 2022 to 50.4% in 2023.
Plastic surgeon fined $5 million for posting positive fake reviews on social media
A Seattle-area physician has been fined $5 million after officials said he threatened patients who left negative reviews of his practice and posted fake reviews. A MedPage Today report said that officials accused plastic surgeon Javad Sajan, MD, of violating state and federal consumer protection laws by posting false reviews and forcing patients to sign nondisclosure agreements to keep them from posting critical reviews. Of the $5 million fine, about $1.5 million will go to about 21,000 of his patients. People who were forced to sign illegal NDAs will receive $50, while people who paid a nonrefundable consultation fee and signed illegal NDAs will get $120. The other $3.5 million will go to the state’s attorney general. Officials also charged the plastic surgeon with rigging local “best doctor” competitions and altering before-and-after photos of patients.
June 12, 2024
Physician pay is up, but so are work hours and patient loads
A new report released last week by MGMA said that physicians saw pay increases from 2022 to 2023 for the fourth year in a row because they are working harder and longer amidst booming post-pandemic patient volumes. MGMA data found that primary care physicians saw a pay increase of 4.44%, surgical specialists saw a jump of 4.42% and nonsurgical specialists saw an increase of 1.81%. MedPage Today coverage said that practices are wringing more work out of their physicians through strategies like opening at 7 a.m. instead of 9 a.m. and offering Saturday hours. Telehealth is also allowing some physicians to squeeze in two or three more patients a day. The report also found that NPs and PAs saw pay increases of 6.47% between 2022 and 2023.
One doctor’s experience with noncompetes
A rheumatologist working at a group purchased by a private equity firm said his experience should give legislators in states that require medical groups to be led by physicians a reason to take a hard look at private equity firms that are entering medicine. The physician’s letter, which was published earlier this month in JAMA Internal Medicine, said the firm that bought his practice required physicians to sign a noncompete agreement that would ban them from working for competing groups within 100 miles for two years. When the rheumatologist tried to negotiate the noncompete, he learned that the physicians who were legally supposed to be running the group had no power. “I was left to deal only with businesspeople,” the physician wrote, “who made it clear that I was a replaceable cog in the machinery of the practice.” MedPage Today coverage of the piece found that the physician left the group without signing the noncompete, but he’s urging lawmakers to learn from his experience and keep a closer eye on private equity firms in health care.
May 16, 2024
More fallout predicted from FTC ban on noncompetes
Legal experts are predicting that nonprofit health care entities probably won’t be completely immune to the Federal Trade Commission’s recent move to ban most noncompete agreements. While the FTC typically has jurisdiction over for-profit companies, Fierce Healthcare reported that an FTC commissioner noted that even some tax-exempt organizations could be subject to the ban against noncompetes. Analysts said that the FTC could apply a two-part test that would look at whether nonprofit organizations use their net proceeds to serve public or private interests and whether a nonprofit had joint ventures with nonprofit entities and for-profit subsidiaries. A HealthLeaders article quoted the CMO of a Maine hospital who predicted that the FTC ruling will not only lead to an increase in physician wages, but that physicians will also be able to switch jobs and work for the highest bidders without a fear of being sued. The CMO predicted that the decision will force health care organizations to spend more money to employ physicians.
Abortion bans affecting where U.S. medical grads are applying for residency
A report from Fierce Healthcare News said that for the second year in a row, U.S. medical graduates are shying away from residency positions in states that ban or restrict abortion. The report noted that’s true for young physicians entering all specialties, not just ob/gyn. Data from the AAMC found that residency applications from U.S. medical graduates in those states during the 2023-2024 application cycle dropped by 4.2%. The drop was highest in states with outright bans on abortions: 6.7%. Applications in other states, by comparison, dropped by 0.6%. The drop in applications in states restricting abortions was lower than in the 2022-2023 application cycle, when residency applications dropped by 11.7% in states with abortion bans. The AAMC analysis noted that there was an overall drop in residency applications from U.S. medical graduates of 0.4% across all specialties and all states in the 2023-2024 cycle, but that most states have been able to fill their slots with international medical graduates.
April 24, 2024
Are you more or less satisfied than when you started in medicine?
Are hospitalists more or less satisfied with their careers than when they started working in medicine? When we asked that question in the 2023 Today’s Hospitalist Compensation & Career Survey, we found that about one-third of hospitalists (34%) said they were more satisfied, about one-third (35%) said they were less satisfied and 30% said their satisfaction levels hadn’t changed much at all. For more details on how hospitalists say their satisfaction has changed over the course of their career, see the online coverage of our survey results.
TeamHealth doctors in Detroit go on strike
A group of emergency physicians working for TeamHealth at Detroit’s Ascension St. John Hospital went on strike last week after months of talks failed to produce a contract. The union had earlier this month filed a 10-day notice that it would strike based on what it said were unfair labor practices. MedPage Today coverage said that TeamHealth has promised to keep the ED open during the strike. The American College of Emergency Physicians expressed support for the strikers in a letter to the hospital’s leadership. While unionization among emergency physicians has been rare, the strike in Detroit has some analysts wondering if other physicians working for groups owned by private equity firms will adopt a similar strategy.
April 4, 2024
Report: The gender gap is alive and well
A MedPage Today article looking at the gender pay gap among physicians cited data showing that female physicians are still paid significantly less than their male counterparts. The good news, according to a survey by Doximity, is that the gender gap shrank 2% between 2021 and 2022. The bad news is that women physicians still earned 26% less—or an average of $110,000 per year less—than their male colleagues during that same period. The MedPage Today report cited other statistics looking at the gender gap, including data from a faculty salary survey commissioned by the Association of American Medical Colleges and multiple journal articles.
The relationship between hospitalist experience and pay
How does years of experience affect hospitalist pay? According to data from the 2023 Today’s Hospitalist Compensation & Career Survey, pay goes up with experience, but there often aren’t big differences between the highs and lows. Hospitalists who have been in their current job for 15-19 years, for example, reported earning around 10% more than their peers who have only two years or less on the job. For more details on the relationship between hospitalist experience and pay, see our online coverage.
March 27, 2024
How much do hospitalists earn from extra shifts?
According to data from the 2023 Today’s Hospitalist Compensation & Career Survey, hospitalists who treat adults and who received any compensation from extra shifts got 11.4% of their total pay from working those additional hours. That number was slightly higher for nonacademic hospitalists, doctors working for local hospitalist groups and hospitalists in the Midwest. For more details on pay from working extra shifts, see the online coverage of Today’s Hospitalist’s survey results.
What does the term “professionalism” really mean for doctors?
While the concept of medical professionalism looms large among physicians, the term can be so vague—and sometimes so arbitrary—that it can be difficult, if not impossible, for some physicians to achieve. A New York Times article that looked at the concept of professionalism said the definition can range from lofty, ethical standards of behavior to prohibitions against actions like hugging a program director or wearing braided hair. The article noted that residents of color are often disciplined for being unprofessional more frequently than their White peers, possibly because the way they look and speak—their very essence—is deemed unprofessional. The article also pointed out what’s considered professionalism may be changing. When a 2020 study on professionalism scoured through social media postings of 500 surgery trainees and rated pictures of physicians in swimsuits as “unprofessional,” critics said the researchers had reduced professionalism to superficial attributes instead of ethical behavior. In protest, a female resident posted a picture of herself on Twitter wearing a bikini top and shorts with the hashtag #MedBikini. She included text that said, “I’ll say it. I wear bikinis. I am going to be a doctor.” Within a day, her post had gone viral and the paper had been retracted.
March 21, 2024
As physicians use AI tools, questions emerge
As physicians begin to embrace AI tools for tasks like responding to patient queries and documenting exams, clinicians are confronting issues of disclosure, accuracy and privacy. A MedPage Today report said that physicians are being forced to decide whether to disclose to patients when replies and documentation has been produced by AI and reviewed by a clinician. Many AI platforms automatically include a line of text noting that the document was produced with the help of technology, but physicians can choose to delete that acknowledgement. Physicians also have to worry about “hallucinations” that pop up in AI-generated content making their way into the medical records. One example occurred when a physician told a patient it was good that she didn’t have an allergy to sulfa drugs. An AI tool generated a note that said, “Allergies: sulfa.” A final concern is patient privacy, particularly for physicians who are recording patient exams to be transcribed by AI. The worry is that those patient data could be sold or stolen by the technology company providing the AI tools.
How are hospitalist bonuses calculated?
Our survey data show that hospitalists average about $40,000 in bonuses per year, but how are those bonuses calculated? Just under half of hospitalists said that their bonuses are based on a combination of group and individual performance, and nearly three-quarters said their bonuses are tied to quality measures like patient safety and documentation. For more data on hospitalist bonuses, see Today’s Hospitalist online coverage.
March 6, 2024
Women in health care report higher levels of burnout than men
A new study has found that women in health care suffer “a significantly higher level of stress and burnout” than their male counterparts. A literature review in Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health said factors like gender inequity in the workplace, poor work-life balance and a lack of autonomy were correlated with increased burnout. An article in Healthcare Dive reported that the study also found that flexible schedules and employee recognition programs helped reduce stress for females working in health care. The data came out at about the same time as survey results from Athena Health, which found that 93% of U.S. physicians regularly feel burned out and 56% might leave medicine or move into non-patient-care roles. Physicians in that survey reported that they regularly work 15 hours a week more than what they consider “normal” hours. One wrinkle to come out of that survey, however, was that 83% of physicians thought that advances in AI could reduce the administrative burdens they face, helping lower their workplace stress.
A look at nocturnist pay, workload and more
What do average nocturnists working in U.S. hospitals earn, how many shifts a month do they work and how many patient encounters do they have a shift? According to data from the 2023 Today’s Hospitalist Compensation & Career Survey, nocturnists do earn more money than their colleagues who work days, but the difference in pay—and other factors like hours—isn’t always as pronounced as you might think. For more, see data from Today’s Hospitalist survey.
February 22, 2024
How shift type and length affect hospitalist pay
In the 2023 Today’s Hospitalist Compensation & Career Survey, we asked hospitalists to tell us how their pay is affected by several factors, including the type of shifts they work, the length of those shifts and whether they work full or part time. For a look at how hospitalists working seven-on/seven-off compare to their colleagues working other types of shifts and more, see Today’s Hospitalists’ online coverage.
Nursing workforce shows signs of rebounding
With so much bad news about health care staffing going around, hospitalists might be glad to hear that nursing workforce numbers appear to be on the rebound. A new study in JAMA Health Forum predicted that the nursing workforce is expected to grow to about 4.5 million by 2035, a number that is close to prepandemic levels. Nurses between the ages of 35 and 49 are expected to account for much of that growth, going from 38% of the nursing workforce in 2022 to 47% in 2035. A MedPage Today report said the study also found rapid growth in the following areas: advanced practice registered nurses (18.2%), male nurses (14.1%), RNs working in non-hospital settings (12.8%) and unmarried nurses (7.4%). The study also found that the number of U.S.-trained students sitting for the licensure exam grew from 154,000 in 2016 to 185,000 in 2021.
For physician news from 2023 and earlier, click here.
