These Are the Highest Paid Doctors in America

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 14, 11:00AM EST

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These Are the Highest Paid Doctors in America — © Christopher Furlong / Getty Images

Many parents encourage their children to become doctors or lawyers. Why? The two professions are among the highest paid in America, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In fact, categories of physicians take up eight of the 20 professions with the highest median annual pay, according to BLS data. And of all physician categories, the highest paid doctors in America are plastic surgeons.

The path to becoming a physician is a long one. Once a candidate has a college degree, he or she spends four years in a medical school, a year or more as a resident in a hospital, and often at least another year, or more, in fellowships. Fellowships can be particularly important for doctors who want to become specialists.

Being a doctor also can be expensive. Malpractice insurance can run as much as $50,000 to double that a year. Doctors who are not employed by hospitals need staff, medical equipment, and office space. Altogether, these costs can run into tens even hundred of thousands of dollars a year. (Here are 87 jobs with six-figure salaries.)

Both expenses and income can vary by geographic location. Doctors in Manhattan often make more than physicians who work in rural settings.

Medical news site Medscape recently released its “Physician Compensation Report 2021: The Recovery Begins.” One of the report’s conclusions is that some doctor practices have struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in 2020. They continued to have expenses, but patient visits dropped. Other doctors could afford to wait out the slow period but lost a great deal of money in the process.

Medscape collected data from nearly 18,000 doctors in over 29 specialties about their incomes (including bonuses) and expenses and hours worked. (You think doctors are highly paid? These are the highest paid CEOs at America’s largest companies.)

Despite COVID-19, the average pay for primary care physicians was $242,000 in 2020 (as reported in this year’s review), about the same as in 2019 (as reported in last year’s review). Specialists made an average of $346,000, also very close to the previous year’s number.

Plastic surgeons made the most money this year, at an average of $526,000.

This is the annual compensation for the highest paid specialties

29. Pediatrics
> Average compensation: $221,000

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28. Family medicine
> Average compensation: $236,000

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27. Public health and preventive medicine
> Average compensation: $237,000

25. Infectious diseases
> Average compensation: $245,000

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25. Diabetes and endocrinology
> Average compensation: $245,000

24. Internal medicine
> Average compensation: $248,000

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23. Allergy and immunology
> Average compensation: $274,000

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22. Psychiatry
> Average compensation: $275,000

21. Rheumatology
> Average compensation: $276,000

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20. Neurology
> Average compensation: $290,000

19. Physical medicine and rehabilitation
> Average compensation: $300,000

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18. Nephrology
> Average compensation: $311,000

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17. Ob/Gyn and women’s health
> Average compensation: $312,000

16. Pathology
> Average compensation: $316,000

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15. Pulmonary medicine
> Average compensation: $333,000

14. Emergency medicine
> Average compensation: $354,000

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13. Critical care
> Average compensation: $366,000

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12. Surgery, general
> Average compensation: $373,000

11. Anesthesiology
> Average compensation: $378,000

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10. Ophthalmology
> Average compensation: $379,000

9. Dermatology
> Average compensation: $394,000

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8. Oncology
> Average compensation: $403,000

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7. Gastroenterology
> Average compensation: $406,000

6. Radiology
> Average compensation: $413,000

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5. Otolaryngology
> Average compensation: $417,000

4. Urology
> Average compensation: $427,000

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3. Cardiology
> Average compensation: $459,000

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2. Orthopedics and orthopedic surgery
> Average compensation: $511,000

1. Plastic surgery
> Average compensation: $526,000

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.