PROVIDENCE – Physicians employed in the Providence metropolitan statistical area (every Rhode Island city and town, except for Westerly, as well as Fall River and New Bedford) are among the lowest paid, based on a survey evaluating the salaries of physicians in the top 50 metropolitan statistical areas. Doximity’s First Annual Physician Compensation Report, issued in April, reports that the Providence MSA’s average annual salary, $294,103, is the eighth lowest, but is incrementally more than $286,971, which is what Boston area physicians earn on average. Doctors in Charlotte, N.C., earn the highest average annual per capita salary – $359,455.
“This study confirms what we’ve known in Rhode Island for decades,” said Steve DeToy, Rhode Island Medical Society director, government and public affairs, who declined to comment on the lower Boston salaries, citing lack of knowledge of that market.
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“With commercial reimbursement rates here lagging behind all other New England states, we’ve been in a market where we had a dominant insurance company, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, that set prices and affected doctors’ ability to make money in their practices,” said DeToy. “It’s contributed to the difficulty in recruiting physicians to Rhode Island.”
DeToy is not the only professional concerned about economic disparities. Chris Whaley, the study’s lead author and an adjunct assistant professor at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health, said in a Doximity statement: “Disparities in compensation directly affect the distribution of physicians around the country, which can impact patient care directly.”
Local primary care providers earn an average per capita salary of $235,781, the nation’s 12th lowest. There’s no pay equity for female physicians – who often choose primary care or pediatrics fields – in the Providence MSA. Their average income, $238,403, represents a 24 percent wage gap, Doximity reported. While the Providence MSA is among the nation’s 10 metro areas where female physicians earn the lowest average annual salary, the 24 percent pay discrepancy was among the survey’s smallest. DeToy said that he’d not seen other reports addressing gender-related income disparities.
On average, Doximity found that female physicians earn $91,284, or 26.5 percent less than their male counterparts. The study found that women did not out-earn men in any medical specialty in any state or any of the top 50 MSAs in the U.S.
Founded in 2011, Doximity, based in San Francisco, Calif., is the largest social network of U.S. doctors. Its membership includes more than 70 percent of all physicians in the United States. The study was based on 36,000 verified physician respondents who practice at least 40 hours a week.
For more information, visit doximity.com.
Nancy Kirsch is a PBN contributing writer.
