Pay over time
National medians by year, adjusted to today's dollars. A nominal series mostly shows inflation; these show whether a specialty actually gained or lost ground.
| Specialty | First year | Then (real) | Now | Real change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cardiology | 2021 | $284,000 | $496,000 | +75% |
| Radiology | 2021 | $284,000 | $421,000 | +48% |
| Orthopedic Surgery | 2021 | $284,000 | $359,000 | +26% |
| Surgery (general and other) | 2011 | $342,000 | $414,000 | +21% |
| Emergency Medicine | 2021 | $284,000 | $336,000 | +18% |
| Dermatology | 2021 | $284,000 | $329,000 | +16% |
| Psychiatry | 2011 | $244,000 | $282,000 | +16% |
| Anesthesiology | 2011 | $342,000 | $391,000 | +14% |
| Pathology | 2021 | $284,000 | $312,000 | +10% |
| Physician Assistant | 2011 | $127,000 | $136,000 | +7% |
| Ophthalmology | 2021 | $284,000 | $300,000 | +6% |
| Family Medicine | 2011 | $239,000 | $244,000 | +2% |
| Internal Medicine | 2011 | $262,000 | $257,000 | -2% |
| Nurse Practitioner | 2017 | $136,000 | $132,000 | -3% |
| Pediatrics | 2011 | $226,000 | $210,000 | -7% |
| Neurology | 2021 | $284,000 | $249,000 | -12% |
| Obstetrics & Gynecology | 2011 | $342,000 | $293,000 | -14% |
| Physicians, all other | 2011 | $342,000 | $266,000 | -22% |
Where the latest figure is a floor, the real change is understated — the BLS cap, not the profession, sets the number.
How these figures are built
Four public sources, weighted by how much each can be trusted. Bureau of Labor Statistics wage surveys by metro area; public payroll disclosures, which list the exact pay of every physician employed by a state university or public hospital; Department of Labor H-1B filings, which record the salary actually offered for every visa hire; and Medicare payment data, which is revenue rather than pay and is used only where nothing better exists.
Public payroll is the anchor. It is the only source that is complete and exact for the people it covers. It reports academic and public-hospital pay, so private-practice figures are extrapolated from it through a per-specialty multiplier — and that multiplier is derived from data (H-1B offers at physician groups versus hospitals, payroll versus hospital offers) wherever there are enough rows, rather than assumed.
The BLS caps what it publishes at $239,200. Anything above prints as a symbol, so for most physician specialties the official "median" is a floor. Where the figure shown equals $239,200 with a C grade, that is what happened: real pay is higher and the other sources were too thin to say by how much.
Grades. A: two independent sources within 15%. B: one solid source, or two within 30%. C: a single source, a capped figure, or a Medicare-derived guess. Quote an A freely, a B with the range, and a C as a floor.
Built from 2025 BLS data, 8,302 H-1B filings.