Healthcare compensation surveys: healthcare salary survey and executive salary survey prices for practices under 200
A healthcare compensation survey costs between about $500 and $5,400 a year where the publisher prints a price, and MGMA and AMGA do not print one at all. For physician pay tied to production that money buys something public data cannot give you. For the clinical and administrative staff who make up most of a practice payroll, the federal wage survey already publishes medians and percentiles for offices of physicians and offices of dentists as separate industries, and almost nobody uses them.
Need a defensible range for a staff role today? Price it on the right. The builder works from the federal wage survey and gives you a band and a posted range you can put in the job ad.
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Built from public U.S. BLS OES wage data (May 2024 release), adjusted for market, seniority and company stage by the multipliers published in our methodology.
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Get startedWhich healthcare compensation survey a practice under 200 actually needs
Buy a survey for the roles where the public data breaks, and stop buying it for the roles where it does not. Physician and advanced practice pay is tied to work RVUs and collections, which no public source reports, so MGMA or AMGA earns its price there. The practice manager is the second case, because the federal occupation code that contains that job runs from $80,210 to $160,230 at the quartiles in an office of physicians, a 100 percent spread that is useless as a band. Everything else, from the medical assistant to the biller to the front desk, already has an industry-specific median and a full percentile ladder published for free.
That split matters more than it sounds, because staff roles are where the headcount is. A practice with eight providers and thirty staff spends most of its payroll on the thirty, and those are exactly the jobs a four-figure provider compensation report does not cover. The common mistake runs the other way too: practices price staff against cross-industry or hospital numbers, which are higher, and then wonder why the salary line keeps growing.
Quick guide
- Physician pay by specialty
- Buy MGMA or AMGA
- Practice manager and executives
- Buy a segmented survey
- Clinical and admin staff
- Industry wage data
- Range for a job ad
- Metro market data
Healthcare compensation survey prices and coverage
Every figure below is quoted from the publisher's own page. Two of the five largest publishers do not print a price for the data at all, which is worth knowing before you budget: you cannot compare what MGMA and AMGA charge without giving each of them your contact details and waiting for a call. Participant discounts, where they exist, are very large.
| Survey | Published price | Covers | Sample | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MGMA DataDive Provider Compensation | Not published. Quote only. Not included with the $399 individual membership | Provider pay and productivity, including work RVUs and encounters | 23 common specialties highlighted in the 2026 report | Physician and advanced practice pay tied to production |
| MGMA DataDive Management and Staff | Not published. Quote only | Total compensation, hourly rates, bonus, retirement and paid time off | More than 157,000 healthcare professionals in 2,500 groups | Management roles a public occupation code cannot separate |
| AMGA Medical Group Compensation and Productivity | Not published. Members receive discounted pricing | 181 physician and advanced practice specialties plus 145 subspecialties | Nearly 188,000 providers and 1,800 executives across 451 medical groups | Multispecialty groups needing deep specialty detail |
| SullivanCotter Health Care Staff Compensation | $1,350 participants, $5,400 health care non-participants, $300 off early submission | More than 800 jobs, 780 or more reported in the latest data | 2,585 or more participants, 2,624,900 or more incumbents | Hospitals and large groups pricing clinical staff |
| ASHHRA Healthcare Compensation Survey | Large institution $2,100 member, $2,400 non-member. Small institution $1,050 and $1,200 | More than 300 positions across 11 metropolitan areas, base pay, incentives and premium pay | Medical centers, hospitals, ambulatory care, clinics and medical schools | Metro-level staff pay where one of the 11 areas is yours |
| ASHHRA Shift Differential and Premium Pay | $500 member, $595 non-member | Differential and premium pay practices, healthcare edition | Healthcare employers | Setting night and weekend premiums |
| BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics | $0 | Every staff occupation, published separately for offices of physicians and offices of dentists, plus every metro area | Full federal establishment survey, May 2025 estimates | Clinical and admin staff bands, if you can work the tables |
| WageList | $99 a month, or $948 a year | Any staff role, by industry and metro, with a band and a postable range | Built on the federal wage survey above | Staff bands and job ad ranges, all year, without a sales call |
Three honest caveats. Our own row does not cover physician pay by specialty and does not report work RVUs, so it is not a substitute for MGMA or AMGA on provider compensation. ASHHRA's survey is written for large institutions and medical centers, so a four-provider clinic is not the population it samples. And SullivanCotter's participant price is only available if you submit your own pay data, which is a real cost in staff hours even though it is not a line on the invoice.
The practice-setting adjustment runs both ways, so there is no healthcare discount factor
Almost every salary site quotes one number per job: the cross-industry median. The federal wage survey also publishes each occupation inside a single industry, and two of those industries are offices of physicians and offices of dentists. Put the three side by side and the assumption behind the single number falls apart.
Across the 15 practice roles below there are 29 published industry cells. Twenty-three pay less than the cross-industry median and six pay more, and 14 of the 29 differ by more than 5 percent. The biggest gap in either direction is not small: a radiologic technologist in an office of dentists has a median of $49,290 against $80,110 across all industries, 38.5 percent lower, while a receptionist in that same dental office has a median of $46,500 against $38,010, 22.3 percent higher.
So you cannot take a market number and apply a single practice adjustment to it. The correction is role by role, it changes sign, and for five of these jobs it is larger than the raise you would give someone for a strong year.
The three numbers that matter most
- Registered nurse
- $97,550 across all industries, $85,000 in an office of physicians. Benchmark to the first and you price 14.8 percent high on every nurse.
- Practice manager
- $123,860 across all industries, $105,770 in an office of physicians, $78,050 in an office of dentists.
- Front desk
- $38,010 across all industries, $46,500 in an office of dentists. Here the cross-industry number is the one that loses you candidates.
| Occupation | All industries | Offices of physicians | Gap | Offices of dentists | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medical and health services managers | $123,860 | $105,770 | 14.6% lower | $78,050 | 37.0% lower |
| Registered nurses | $97,550 | $85,000 | 12.9% lower | $75,350 | 22.8% lower |
| Nurse practitioners | $132,300 | $129,190 | 2.4% lower | $121,120 | 8.5% lower |
| Physician assistants | $135,880 | $132,000 | 2.9% lower | $129,460 | 4.7% lower |
| Licensed practical and vocational nurses | $64,400 | $59,520 | 7.6% lower | $64,370 | level |
| Medical assistants | $45,690 | $45,520 | 0.4% lower | $40,280 | 11.8% lower |
| Dental hygienists | $98,100 | $91,160 | 7.1% lower | $98,280 | 0.2% higher |
| Dental assistants | $48,070 | $47,310 | 1.6% lower | $48,000 | 0.1% lower |
| Radiologic technologists | $80,110 | $74,540 | 7.0% lower | $49,290 | 38.5% lower |
| Surgical technologists | $64,650 | $64,590 | level | $48,190 | 25.5% lower |
| Medical records specialists | $51,140 | $47,120 | 7.9% lower | $53,580 | 4.8% higher |
| Billing and posting clerks | $48,500 | $47,570 | 1.9% lower | $51,910 | 7.0% higher |
| Medical secretaries and administrative assistants | $45,930 | $44,610 | 2.9% lower | $47,990 | 4.5% higher |
| Receptionists and information clerks | $38,010 | $39,550 | 4.1% higher | $46,500 | 22.3% higher |
| Phlebotomists | $45,230 | $44,500 | 1.6% lower | not published | not published |
Annual median wage, May 2025 estimates from the federal Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, industry codes 6211 and 6212. These are real establishment counts, not self-reported figures: the survey records 232,420 registered nurses employed in offices of physicians and 211,560 dental hygienists in offices of dentists. How the survey is built, and where it falls short, is on our BLS salary data page.
Percentile ladders that already look like a salary band
A survey report is only useful once it becomes a band with a floor, a midpoint and a ceiling. The quartiles inside a single practice industry are close to that already. Take the 25th percentile as the floor, the median as the midpoint and the 75th as the ceiling, and most of these roles land at a spread of 23 to 42 percent, which is where comp practice puts support and professional bands anyway.
| Role and setting | Floor (25th) | Midpoint (median) | Ceiling (75th) | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Registered nurse, physician office | $75,390 | $85,000 | $102,270 | 36% |
| Medical assistant, physician office | $38,440 | $45,520 | $48,130 | 25% |
| Medical secretary, physician office | $37,790 | $44,610 | $48,030 | 27% |
| Billing and posting clerk, physician office | $42,620 | $47,570 | $55,830 | 31% |
| Receptionist, physician office | $36,580 | $39,550 | $45,950 | 26% |
| Dental hygienist, dental office | $83,920 | $98,280 | $108,680 | 30% |
| Dental assistant, dental office | $44,360 | $48,000 | $58,020 | 31% |
| Receptionist, dental office | $38,830 | $46,500 | $49,960 | 29% |
| Billing and posting clerk, dental office | $48,270 | $51,910 | $62,900 | 30% |
| Practice manager, physician office | $80,210 | $105,770 | $160,230 | 100% |
| Practice manager, dental office | $66,560 | $78,050 | $105,930 | 59% |
Read the last two rows as a warning rather than a band. A 100 percent spread is not a pay grade, it is a sign the occupation code is too broad: code 11-9111 holds the office manager of a three-provider clinic and the vice president of a hospital system, and the survey cannot tell them apart. That is the one staff-side role where a purpose-built survey with a revenue or provider-count cut genuinely earns its price. For the rest, the mechanics of turning percentiles into grades are on how to create salary bands, and the arithmetic of spread, midpoint and overlap is on the salary midpoint calculator.
Getting industry and geography at the same time, which no single table gives you
Here is the real limitation, and it is the reason practices end up on a sales call. The federal survey publishes occupation by industry at the national level, and occupation by metro area across all industries. It does not publish occupation by industry by metro. So you can learn what a nurse earns in physician offices nationally, or what a nurse earns in Phoenix across every employer type, but not what a nurse earns in a Phoenix physician office.
The usable fix is a two-step ratio. Divide the industry median by the national all-industry median to get the practice-setting factor, then apply that factor to your metro median. For registered nurses the factor is $85,000 divided by $97,550, which is 0.871. Phoenix-Mesa publishes a nurse median of $100,830, so the estimate for a Phoenix physician office is about $87,900. Atlanta publishes $100,490, which gives about $87,600.
It is an estimate, and it assumes the industry factor holds locally, which it broadly does for staff roles because the same local labor market sets both. It is also reproducible, which matters if anyone ever asks how the number was built. Doing it by hand for thirty roles is the part nobody has time for, and it is exactly what the builder at the top of this page does.
Worked example
- RN, all industries, national
- $97,550
- RN, offices of physicians, national
- $85,000
- Practice-setting factor
- 0.871
- RN, Phoenix-Mesa, all industries
- $100,830
- Estimate, Phoenix physician office
- about $87,900
Apply the same factor to your own metro. Geographic differences and how far to move a band for them are covered in geographic pay differentials.
Four things a paid healthcare survey gives you that public data does not
Production
Work RVUs, encounters and collections per provider. The federal survey records wages, not productivity, so any pay model that divides compensation by wRVU needs a survey. AMGA reports metrics for 181 specialties and 145 subspecialties.
Specialty detail
Federal occupation codes stop at broad physician categories. A survey separates interventional from general cardiology, which is where the pay difference actually sits.
Practice-size cuts
Data split by provider count, ownership, single or multispecialty. That is what fixes the 100 percent practice manager spread in the table above.
Pay practices
Bonus design, retirement contributions, paid time off and shift premiums. MGMA reports these alongside compensation, and the premium pay questions are their own ASHHRA survey at $500.
There is a fifth thing, and it is the one most practices underrate: participating. Submitting your own pay data is what moves you from SullivanCotter's $5,400 non-participant price to $1,350, and MGMA gives data submitters discounted data set prices plus their own numbers preloaded next to the national benchmarks. If you are going to buy anyway, submitting first is the cheapest decision on this page. For night and weekend premiums specifically, the rules that make them expensive are on shift differential pay.
Who buys healthcare compensation data, and what they need from it
The practice administrator
Running a 20 to 60 person practice, hiring medical assistants and front desk staff several times a year, and needing a range that holds up when two people compare offers.
The physician owner
Deciding what to pay a new associate or a nurse practitioner, without a comp department, and wanting the decision documented before the partners vote on it.
The dental group operator
Running several locations where hygienist pay drives the schedule, and where the dental-office numbers differ sharply from the hospital figures recruiters quote. See WageList for small business.
The HR lead in a hiring state
Posting roles in states that require a good faith range in the ad, and needing a current band per role rather than one report a year. See job posting salary ranges.
Practices are covered by pay transparency laws like everyone else
State salary range laws count employees and look at where the work happens. They do not ask what industry you are in and they do not exempt clinical roles. A practice hiring in Colorado posts a range from its first employee; in California the duty starts at 15 employees. That turns pay data from an annual budgeting exercise into a requirement attached to every job ad, which is the practical reason a practice needs current ranges for thirty roles rather than a report that covers eight.
Thresholds, what counts as good faith and whether benefits must be listed all vary. Our pay transparency law guide covers each state, and the state by state table puts them side by side. If you are comparing survey vendors more broadly, the salary survey providers page covers the general-market publishers.
Price every staff role in the practice, not eight of them
Industry and metro data, a band per role, and a range you can paste into the job ad. No sales call to find out what it costs.
Healthcare compensation survey questions buyers ask
How much does MGMA data cost?
MGMA publishes individual membership prices but not data prices. A one-year individual membership is $399, $349 with auto renew, or $699 for two years. DataDive, which is the data itself, is not included with individual membership and requires an additional purchase whose price MGMA does not publish anywhere on its site.
How much does a healthcare compensation survey cost?
Where prices are published they run from about $500 to $5,400 a year. ASHHRA charges $1,050 for members and $1,200 for non-members at a small institution, and $2,100 to $2,400 at a large one. SullivanCotter charges participants $1,350 and health care non-participants $5,400. MGMA and AMGA quote on request.
Is MGMA salary data accurate?
It is accurate for what it measures, which is pay and production reported by participating medical groups. The risk is in how it gets used. A national median for a specialty says nothing about your region, your practice size or your ownership model, and MGMA reports several cuts precisely because the national figure is the least useful one.
What is the best healthcare compensation survey?
For physician and advanced practice pay tied to production, MGMA DataDive Provider Compensation and the AMGA Medical Group Compensation and Productivity Survey are the two serious choices. For clinical and administrative staff, a staff survey such as SullivanCotter or ASHHRA is closer, and public federal wage data already covers most of those roles.
Where can I find healthcare salary data by practice type?
The federal wage survey publishes wages by industry, and two of those industries are offices of physicians and offices of dentists. That gives you a median, a 10th, 25th, 75th and 90th percentile for every staff occupation in a practice setting, separately from the hospital and cross-industry figures most sites quote.
MGMA vs AMGA: which compensation survey should a medical group use?
AMGA is deeper on specialty detail: nearly 188,000 providers and 1,800 executives across 451 medical groups, with 181 physician and advanced practice specialties plus 145 subspecialties. MGMA is broader across practice functions, adding management, staff, financials and operations data sets. Larger multispecialty groups often buy both and reconcile them.
Do medical practices have to post salary ranges in job ads?
Yes, wherever a state pay transparency law reaches the job. These laws count employees and look at where the work is performed, not at what industry you are in, so a practice hiring in Colorado, California, Washington, New York or Illinois must post a good faith range for a medical assistant the same way any employer would.
Can I use hospital salary data to pay practice staff?
You can, but you will usually pay too much. A registered nurse in an office of physicians has a median of $85,000 against $97,550 across all industries, so a practice that benchmarks to the cross-industry figure is pricing roughly 14.8 percent high on every nurse it hires.
Start with the role you are hiring this month
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Keep going
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MGMA compensation data cost
What the $399 membership does and does not include.
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Salary survey providers
The general-market publishers and what each one charges.
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BLS salary data
How the federal wage survey is built, and its real limits.
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Salary bands
Turning percentiles into grades the whole practice shares.