Radiologist Salaries

Radiologist Salaries are driven by many of the same factors in health care that other health care salaries are driven by a strange blend of high demand and low supply being forced to deal with a decreased re-imbursement monetary model. Still, radiologist compensation is one of the better ones in the health care industry.  Reimbursement will vary depending on the type of radiologist. Radiologists are designated between two specializations by the salary data I have found. The first type is called a Diagnostic Radiologist -Interventional and the second type is classified as Diagnostic Radiologist - Non-interventional.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics combines all physicians together for salary data.  According to the BLS the average annual salary for specialty practice physicians is over $350,000.  Payscale.com lists the national average as between $44,000 to $250,000.  This reflects the radiologists working part time as well as the full time physicians.   A survey by the American Medical Group Association for all radiologist salaries shows the median wages for all diagnostic radiologists to be considerably higher than the average.  with increases reported from the AMGA salary survey for 2008 and 2009. 

Interventional radiologist's earn the most with a median salary of $478,000 per year. The lowest salaries are in the eastern part of the United States with the highest being the Southern United States. Interventional radiologist wages are as high as $575,000 annually. Non-interventional radiologist's average $454,000 per year. The range in different areas of the United States tends to be narrower than interventional radiologist's  with lower salaries in the East and  higher wages in the Northern United States. Another site reporting on salary data is locumtenens.com which lists the average radiologist salary at just under $400,000. 

One explanation for the wide variation in the reported incomes is that much of this data is collected from surveys sent to physicians.  These surveys have drawbacks due to the fact that the information is self reported.  Additionally, not all surveys wll be returned and those reporting may not be representative of the entire group depending on how small the responding groups are.

These physicians, like most,are usually self employed.  Benefits such as retirement, vacation time, and healthcare insurance are usually up to the individual to provide.  In some instances they may work as part of a group practice or as an employee of a large hospital.