Data Mine: A compensation conundrum

At the end of each year, physician practices assess their recent performance and identify areas for improvement in the upcoming year. Accounting systems typically take more time to report detailed practice expenses and revenues, prompting initial assessments to focus on provider compensation and productivity using available billing and personnel system reports.

Beyond these internal analyses, practice leaders can benchmark physician and advanced practice provider (APP) performance against national data published in the MGMA DataDive Provider Compensation.

The recently released 2025 data set indicates that 2024 was a strong year for physicians employed by hospitals and integrated delivery systems (IDS), showing increases in compensation and productivity. Conversely, providers in physician-owned practices struggled, with many specialties earning and producing less compared to 2023.