The highest paid doctors, charted

Editor's note: This story was updated Dec. 11.

Doximity on Tuesday released its 2019 U.S. Physician Employment Report, which shows the highest paid and most in-demand physician specialties of 2019.

Attract and retain physician talent—without focusing solely on compensation

Methodology

For the report, Doximity evaluated roughly 27,000 job postings for physicians on its employment platform posted in 2018 and 2019. Researchers analyzed data on the top 50 metropolitan statistical areas. For findings on compensation, Doximity analyzed responses to its compensation survey, which surveyed about 70,000 full-time physicians between 2018 and 2019.  

Highest paid specialties

When examining compensation by specialty, the researchers found neurosurgeons were the highest paid physician specialists in 2019.

Meanwhile, the researchers' analysis of compensation growth found that pediatrics had the highest pay increase of all physician specialties in 2019.

Doximity also ranked the cities where physicians were paid the most in 2019 and found that physicians in Milwaukee topped the list, with an average compensation of $395,363.

Physician demand

Doximity also looked at physician demand in the report and found that physician demand has increased every year for the past three years. The report found a 5% increase in job opportunities for physicians in 2019, which is slightly lower than in 2018, when demand for physicians increased by 7%.

Doximity also analyzed physician demand by specialty and found the physician specialties that were most in-demand in 2019, starting with the most in-demand, were:

1. Family Medicine;
2. Internal Medicine;
3. Emergency Medicine;
4. Psychiatry;
5. Obstetrics & Gynecology;
6. Neurology;
7. Radiology;
8. Anesthesiology;
9. Pediatrics; and
10. Cardiology.

Meanwhile, the 10 metro areas with the highest growth for physician demand were:

The report also analyzed the number of job opportunities in telemedicine for physicians and found the number of physicians who have self-reported telemedicine as a skill increased 20% each year between 2015 and 2018. The telemedicine specialties that were most in-demand in 2019 were:

1. Internal Medicine;
2. Psychiatry;
3. Radiology;
4. Family Medicine;
5. Pediatrics;
6. Emergency Medicine;
7. Neurology;
8. Cardiology;
9. Obstetrics & Gynecology; and
10. Dermatology (Doximity report, 12/10; Doximity release, 12/10).