Medical salaries · over time

Critical Care pay since

Adjusted to 2025 dollars

National. Capped BLS years are shown at the cap, so the blue line flattens where the survey stops publishing rather than where pay does.

Medscape average, incl. owners

Year	BLS median employed	Medscape average incl. owners	In 2025 dollars BLS / Medscape
2011	—	$265,000	— / $379,000
2012	—	$263,000	— / $368,000
2013	—	$281,000	— / $388,000
2015	—	$306,000	— / $415,000
2016	—	$324,000	— / $434,000
2017	—	$354,000	— / $464,000
2018	—	$349,000	— / $447,000
2019	—	$355,000	— / $446,000
2020	—	$366,000	— / $455,000
2021	—	$369,000	— / $438,000
2022	—	$406,000	— / $446,000
2023	—	$401,000	— / $423,000
2024	—	$418,000	— / $428,000
2025	—	$427,000	— / $427,000

Reading this series

Two different measurements. The BLS line is a median wage for employed physicians and excludes practice owners and partners. The Medscape line is a self-reported average of total compensation — salary, bonus and profit sharing — and includes owners. Medscape runs higher everywhere, and most so where private ownership is common. Neither is wrong; they answer different questions.

Medscape labels a report by its publication year, and the data is the prior year. The report published in 2026 describes 2025 compensation. Years here are compensation years. One year is marked "patient care", a narrower measure Medscape used in that report, and is not directly comparable to the rest.

Adjusted with the CPI-U annual average to 2025 dollars. The BLS changed its occupation codes in 2018; both codings are mapped to the same specialty so the series does not break there.

A year marked "capped" is one where the BLS published only that pay exceeded $239,200 (the ceiling was lower in earlier years). Those points understate the real figure, and a series that flattens at the cap is telling you about the survey, not the profession.