Authors: Kevin Loeffler Elijah Muirhead
Physician compensation continues to evolve with supply and demand pressures raising wages, while corresponding reimbursement continues to tumble. Now in its eleventh year, Gallagher's 2025 Physician Compensation and Production Survey continues to grow and provide valuable insights into how organizations are addressing physician compensation issues. Our survey gathered data on a total of 115,562 physicians across 162 different physician specialties. Participation numbers represent a 16.6% increase in physicians over the 2024 survey.
Affordability versus wage pressure
While revenue concerns have prompted employer discussions surrounding compensation models and pay competitiveness, inflation and the escalation in cost of living have counteracted these pressures to further increase wages. Our survey found most organizations (74%) increased physician compensation between 1% and 5% from 2023 to 2024.
Increases in compensation averaged 4.4% across all specialties based on our 2025 survey compared to the 2024 survey.
| Specialty | YoY Increase |
| Primary care | 5.3% |
| Surgical | 3.6% |
| Medical | 4.2% |
| Hospital-based | 4.2% |
Only 11% of organizations reported making changes to physician compensation as a result of economic uncertainties. However, many organizations are continuing to discuss alternative pay models due to affordability concerns.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services adds two G-codes
Each year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) updates the Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) and corresponding work relative value unit (RVU) values. While more recent changes have occurred, changes that impacted the 2024 data primarily included the addition of two additional G-codes, specifically Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) codes G2211 and G0136.
- HCPCS code G2211 is an add-on code for office and outpatient services valued at 0.33 work RVUs per unit. This code is designed to better recognize the resource costs associated with evaluation and management visits for primary care and longitudinal care.
- HCPCS G0136 is a standalone code used to evaluate social factors affecting health and is valued at 0.18 work RVUs per unit.
Together, these codes aim to enhance the accuracy of resource allocation in healthcare by addressing both the direct costs of patient care and the broader social factors that influence health outcomes.
Some organizations delay adoption of new codes
However, these updates assume that organizations are using current or recent CMS fee schedules. However, only 53% of organizations reported using the 2024 fee schedule last year, with an additional 29% using the 2023 fee schedule. A total of 18% of organizations continue to use 2022 or earlier fee schedules because of their hesitancy to adopt the substantial changes CMS implemented during the past few years. Many organizations now lag the market by a year to allow time to model the financial impact of a new fee schedule and determine whether they should alter their physician compensation plans. As a result, these G-code fee schedule changes may impact physician compensation at individual healthcare organizations once those organizations allow the changes to flow through their compensation models.
Impact of the new G-codes
Given these additions, many providers saw an increased amount of work RVUs for providing the same level of services compared with prior years. Approximately 47% of organizations included all G-codes in compensation calculations, while 33% of organizations only included G-codes that were reimbursed by payors; 15% of organizations excluded all G-codes from compensation calculations all together.
While the G2211 add-on code resulted in increased work RVUs, organizations didn't realize all of the changes in 2024, given the delay in provider utilization. As a result, first-year values remained lower than initially anticipated. Therefore, we expect that next year's survey will continue to see an increasing effect related to the new G-codes.
Gallagher recommends that healthcare employers assess the impacts that fee schedule changes will have on their compensation models, especially in models that are productivity based and could see a continued prevalence in the inclusion of add-ons such as G2211.
Clinical expectations
We further observed a continued erosion of on-site clinical expectations across many specialties. To help understand requirements, we surveyed organizations on their annual clinical hours requirements, excluding personal time off (PTO), for a defined 1.0 full-time equivalent (FTE) physician.
- Anesthesia/Hospitalists included the highest expectations, with a median of approximately 2,100 hours.
- Emergency Medicine followed by Urgent Care reported the least number of hours, with 1,728 and 1,872 hours at median, respectively.
- While we continue to observe a declining number of hours among our clients, we found that even on the low end (25th percentile) all specialties besides Emergency Medicine (1,584 at the 25th percentile) still required at least 1,750 hours annually to be considered a 1.0 FTE physician.
Annual Gallagher provider compensation surveys
Our compensation surveys are as varied as they are in-depth, offering benchmarking information within the healthcare industry. We make participation easy with a data extraction template that allows you to easily export your compensation data. We put customers first with fast, easy setup, timely reporting, competitive pricing and easy participation. Gallagher healthcare provider surveys include:
- Physician Compensation and Production Survey
- National Advanced Practice Provider Compensation Survey
- Physician Call Pay Survey
- Medical Director and Physician Executive Survey
We invite you to participate in or purchase a survey.
Gallagher offers market guidance
Gallagher's Physician Compensation and Valuation team can help your organization understand and navigate physician and APP compensation market trends and regulatory compliance. Let our industry-leading data help drive your decisions to better face the future with confidence.
