When compared with other healthcare and high-skilled professions, orthopedic surgeons had the largest inflation-adjusted drop in pay, according to a March 6 report from Healio.
The study used income data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and compared compensation of orthopedic surgeons, general surgeons, internal medicine physicians, podiatrists, dentists, nurses, hospital or health care managers, secondary-school teachers, attorneys, accountants, engineers, economists, social workers, actuaries and police officers.
Between 2000 and 2020, orthopedic surgeons saw a compensation increase of 15%. Over the same period, the concurrent increase in inflation has been 53%, which translates into an absolute decline of 38% in inflation-adjusted compensation over a 20-year period.
Inflation, rising interest rates, staff shortages, policy changes, reimbursement decreases, financial burdens of Medicare and Medicaid patients and increasing expenses are a few of the potential factors that caused the pay decrease for orthopedic surgeons, the report said.
