With physician shortages and the rise in hospital employment making it more difficult for medical practices to recruit, over half (56 percent) of the newly trained physicians who joined practices last year received signing bonuses or paid relocation expenses, according to a new survey from the Medical Group Management Association. In addition, 12 percent of surveyed physicians received loan forgiveness packages as part of their employment offers, most of which were $50,000 or less.

Although employers were more likely to offer loan forgiveness packages to primary-care physicians than specialty-care physicians, MGMA's Physician Placement Starting Salary Survey: 2011 Report Based on 2010 Data found that starting pay was highest for specialists joining multispecialty practices.

In particular, specialty physicians earned a median first-year guaranteed salary of $258,677 in multispecialty practices and $240,596 in single-specialty practices, according to the report. Primary-care physicians received a median first-year guaranteed salary of $165,000 in multispecialty practices and $172,400 in single specialty practices.

Going forward, practice size and subspecialty will continue to impact the compensation of hospital-employed physicians, as well, notes Becker's Hospital Review, as both factors affect the hospital's opportunity to bolster revenue through ancillary services.

Finally, MGMA found that specialty physicians' starting pay varied by a practice's geographic location, with physicians in the Southern and Western regions of the United States commanding higher first-year salaries than their counterparts in the East and Midwest ($270,000 to $275,000 vs. $220,000 to $250,000, respectively). However, starting pay for PCPs consistently averaged about $170,000 across most of the country.

To learn more:
- see the press release from MGMA
- read this post from the MGMA In Practice Blog
- check out this article from Becker's Hospital Review

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