How Employed Physicians’ Compensation is Structured in 2025

Medscape’s Employed Physicians Report 2025 demonstrates that compensation for employed physicians continues to rely heavily on performance-based models, with more than one-third receiving pay tied to both salary and productivity.

The report is based on a survey of 823 employed physicians conducted between March 19, 2025 and June 3, 2025.

The breakdown of employed physicians’ compensation structures:

• Base salary + productivity targets + other performance metrics: 36%

• Salary only: 28%

• Base salary + other incentives: 26%

• 100% productivity targets: 6%

• Other: 3%

Many health systems advertise inflated salaries to attract physician talent. Unfortunately, much of that compensation package will be performance based. While on paper that sounds reasonable, more often than not employers will begin shifting the goal posts as employed physicians get closer to achieving their KPI based ‘bonuses’, which are often construed as a salary. Buzz words to watch for in these advertisements include “unlimited income potential”, “#1 referred practice”, “full patient panel, easily achieve RVU bonus”.