Physician pay has continued to steadily increase over the last few years, up by over $50,000 since 2018.
While rising pay is good news for physicians, it could potentially be bad news for small ASCs already struggling to hire and retain specialists.
Twenty-one major physician specialties, including gastroenterology and anesthesiology, saw salary increases in 2023. Even among first-year physicians, wages are on the rise, with starting pay up in 12 specialties this year.
As private equity continues to expand in the ASC space and smaller facilities get acquired by larger health systems, remaining physician-owned practices may struggle to compete.
"Physicians remaining independent are going to be few and far between. They're either going to go with these large equity groups or hospitals or something like that," Sheldon Taub, MD, a gastroenterologist at Jupiter (Fla.) Medical Center, told Becker's.
This is likely due, in part, to the high wages and flashy benefits that smaller ASCs won't be able to compete with.
"We get fully staffed, we think everything is good, and then it just falls apart because somebody gets lured away for a $30,000 sign-on bonus at one of these major hospitals that locks them in for two years … you're constantly competing," Curt Collins, COO of Palmetto Surgery Center in Columbia, S.C., told Becker's in July.
"With recent reimbursement changes from major medical insurances as well as cuts from CMS, it is very difficult to maintain revenue in private practice," Li Sun, DO, orthopedic and spine surgeon at Sun Orthopaedic & Spine Care in Metuchen, N.J., told Becker's. "I think fewer and fewer private practices will be able to survive on their own without being affiliated with healthcare systems or large [management service organizations]."
While rising wages are good for physicians, they could signal the beginning of the end for small ASCs that cannot keep up with inflation, reimbursement declines and a higher wage threshold.