Physician salaries and average gross billing: Family medicine, specialties, and APPs

Physicians, hospitals, and health systems have a number of ways to measure physician productivity: relative value units, numbers of patients seen, and net collections, to name a few.

Gross billing is not as precise as net collections, but it is another criterion for physician performance, according to AMN Healthcare. The company specializes in health care talent solutions and is among the largest health care staffing organizations in the United States.

AMN Healthcare has published its “2023 Physician Billing Report,” analyzing commercial payer billing data for physicians, advanced practice professionals (APPs), along with collections figures.

A key question: How does primary care measure up to other specialties and against nurse practitioners and certified registered nurse anesthetists? This slideshow has physician starting salaries, compared to average billing to commercial payers.

“As these comparisons show, the billing physicians generate to commercial (payers) typically are many times higher than the salaries they are paid,” the report said. “Even when making the assumption that net collections represent 50% of what physicians bill, it is clear that physicians generate revenue that is well in excess of their usual remuneration.”

The company noted the amounts would be even larger if claims to Medicare and other noncommercial payers were added. AMN said its report is a storehouse of information for physicians, hospitals, medical groups, policy makers, or any entity that employs doctors and is seeking productivity benchmarks.