Median total cash compensation rose 7.2% for adult medical physicians and 4.3% for adult surgical physicians from 2025 to 2026, according to SullivanCotter's 2026 Physician Compensation and Productivity Survey. Primary care pay rose 4.6% while primary care work RVUs rose only 0.8%.
SullivanCotter released the survey on September 17, 2026, and Medical Economics reported the results on September 22, 2026. The numbers below show where pay moved, how far it ran ahead of output, and what recruitment offers look like at 575 employers.
What the 2026 survey covers
The 2026 edition draws on 575 health care organizations and about 235,000 physicians across 240 specialties, Medical Economics reported. That is nearly 4,000 more physician records than the 2025 edition. SullivanCotter's own page describes the 2025 edition as 500 organizations, nearly 231,300 physicians and 232 specialties.
The survey tracks total cash compensation, which combines base salary and incentive pay. It also collects productivity data such as work RVUs, collections, patient visits and panel sizes. The sources do not break the sample down by practice size, so an independent group can treat the figures as a reference point and not as a match for its own market.
Specialties are sorted into seven groups. Adult medical, adult surgical and primary care are the three groups that Medical Economics reported in full.
Pay growth by specialty group
Adult medical specialties led the three reported groups with a 7.2% median increase in total cash compensation. That followed 7.5% a year earlier. Adult surgical specialties had the smallest increase at 4.3%. Primary care rose 4.6%, up from 4.1% in 2025.
Over five years, adult medical pay is up a cumulative 25.2% and primary care pay is up 22.5%. SullivanCotter's 2025 page put the five-year primary care figure at 21.8%.
| Group | 2026 pay change | 2025 pay change | 2026 wRVU change | 2025 wRVU change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adult medical | 7.2% | 7.5% | 2.8% | 3.0% |
| Primary care | 4.6% | 4.1% | 0.8% | 0.2% |
| Adult surgical | 4.3% | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated |
Source: SullivanCotter 2026 Physician Compensation and Productivity Survey, as reported by Medical Economics, September 22, 2026. Pay is median total cash compensation, 575 organizations.
Single specialties moved more. Rheumatology had the largest one-year gain at 10.4%. Child and adolescent psychiatry and family medicine with obstetrics each rose 9.7%, and infectious disease rose 9.6%.
Pay ran ahead of output
In adult medical, pay grew 7.2% while work RVUs grew 2.8%. That is a 4.4 percentage point gap, calculated from the two survey figures. In primary care the gap is 3.8 points, from 4.6% pay growth against 0.8% wRVU growth.
Compensation per wRVU rose between 1.4% and 2.9% across the seven groups. A practice that set its pay per wRVU a year ago and has not changed it can compare its rate against that 1.4% to 2.9% range.
Infectious disease is the exception. Its work RVUs rose 11.1%, the largest increase among specialties with at least 200 physicians reporting productivity data. Its pay rose 9.6%, so output and pay moved closer together there than in any group above.
SullivanCotter's 2025 page attributed that year's increases mainly to supply and demand, not to productivity gains. It also noted that employers in anesthesiology, critical care and hospital medicine cut required annual work hours, which raised pay per hour worked. Since 2024, pay for general, cardiac and pediatric anesthesiology rose 14% to 16%. Certified registered nurse anesthetists gained almost 12%, and diagnostic, interventional and mammography radiology gained 12% to 18%.
Recruitment offers and incentive measures
Nearly 65% of participating organizations plan to expand their physician workforce in the next year. SullivanCotter's 2025 page tied pay growth that year to supply and demand.
Loan repayment programs now appear at 49% of responding organizations, down from 52% in the 2025 edition. The 2025 survey also reported sign-on bonuses at 90% of organizations, malpractice tail coverage at 38%, resident recruitment stipends at 27%, dependent tuition assistance at 7% and low-interest loan refinancing at 2%.
Incentive plans lean on two measures. Individual productivity and patient experience are each used by 73% of organizations. Clinical outcomes are used by 55%, which was the largest increase from the 2025 edition.
A plan built on wRVUs alone covers one of those two 73% measures.
Checking a pay scale against the survey
Each comparison below uses figures a practice already has. First, compare last year's change in physician pay with the survey group closest to your specialty, such as 4.6% for primary care or 7.2% for adult medical. Second, compare the change in total wRVUs with 0.8% and 2.8%. Third, divide total physician cash pay by wRVUs and compare the yearly change with the 1.4% to 2.9% range.
If pay grew 4.6% and output grew 0.8%, a practice sits at the survey median for primary care. If pay grew 4.6% and output grew 4.6%, pay at that practice follows output more closely than it does in the survey groups. Each result points to a different question for the next compensation review.
The Medicare numbers behind the pay plans
Medicare set the 2026 conversion factor increase at 3.26% for most physicians and 3.77% for qualifying APM participants, Medical Economics reported. The same rule applied a 2.5% efficiency adjustment. Primary care pay rose 4.6% in the same period, 1.3 percentage points above the 3.26% payment increase.
The 2027 proposal points the other way. CMS proposed a conversion factor cut of 1.68% for most physicians and 1.19% for qualifying APM participants. It also proposed a 16% rise in the E/M payment tied to the G2211 replacement modifier, and a 50% payment rate for the second and later services billed with an office E/M visit on the same day as a procedure.
Public comments closed September 14, 2026. A final rule usually appears around November 1.
Sources
- Medical Economics, Physician pay rose across every specialty group in 2026, SullivanCotter survey finds, September 22, 2026
- SullivanCotter, Physician Compensation Trends (2025 edition summary), undated
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