Growth in UC Physician Salaries Has Outpaced Some Other Settings

For too long, urgent care was perceived as the ugly stepchild of various other practice settings—emergency medicine light, doc-in-a-box…pick your dismissive stereotype. Given the evolution of ownership structures since then, from entrepreneurial physicians to venture capitalists and major health systems, it shouldn’t be a surprise that a key metric—physician salaries—have actually started trending higher than some longer-established specialties. According to new data from the American Medical Group Association and published online as a slideshow by Medical Economics, between 2017 and 2018 the average urgent care physician salary grew 2.8%, from $275,959 to $283,787—the 11^th steepest increase of the 21 specialties included. Psychiatry saw the biggest jump (15.6%, from $256,400 to $296,388), while four specialties (ophthalmology, diagnostic radiology, gastroenterology, and pediatrics) actually dropped in average salary.