Physician compensation increased significantly in 2018, while productivity stagnated, according to the newly released findings of the American Medical Group Association’s 2019 Medical Group Compensation and Productivity Survey.

Overall, physician pay rose by a median of 2.92% in 2018, a sharp rise over 2017’s 0.89%. Productivity, however, did not see such a large increase as a whole, up only 0.29% from 2017’s 1.63% decline.

Median pay for all Primary Care specialties increased by 4.91%, a staggering difference over the 0.76% compensation growth in 2017. Within Primary Care, Family Medicine saw the highest increase in compensation at 6.25% in 2018, followed closely by Internal Medicine (5.90%), while Pediatrics saw a slight decline in compensation of -0.04%.

The overall median compensation was up for medical specialties, as well, seeing growth of 3.39% in 2018, with Psychiatry seeing the sharpest increase of 15.6%.

“The 2019 survey shows that physician compensation in 2018 rebounded from a stagnant 2017,” said Fred Horton, M.H.A., AMGA Consulting president, in a press release. “While productivity also increased, it did not increase enough to surpass the decline we saw in last year’s survey, meaning productivity still has not risen since 2016.”

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