You may not be a movie star, musician, or athlete, but as a doctor, you’re the next best thing to a celebrity to the average person.
Physicians already have the potential to make top dollar, depending on factors like specialty, location, and terms of employment. But you aren’t satisfied with your current income, and you know that reaching your financial and life goals means you need to earn more.
The good news is that the world, in general, is embracing the trend of unlimited income through multiple streams of revenue, and with your skills and knowledge, you can jump on board easily. Here are the top tips to help you increase your pay, both immediately and over time.
1. Ask for a Raise
This one sounds obvious, but to ensure you’re successful at it, you have to put a little preparation in before heading to HR and demanding more money.
First, check your contract. If it stipulates a raise that you haven’t received yet, you’re on firm ground. Bring in a copy with that portion highlighted, and explain that you want the raise that’s due, plus back pay for the time missed.
If raises aren’t discussed, start researching other similar jobs in your radius. Put together a document that includes pay, benefits, and other perks for anything that you’d qualify for.
Research the average salary for your field and experience in your area, and include that information. If what you’re currently making is less than most of the wages you uncovered, your employer should be more amenable to giving you a raise.
Finally, include any new certifications, training, or education that you’ve picked up since your contract was signed that increase your value as a physician. For instance, maybe you’ve become a medical marijuana-licensed doctor, and you could bring in more revenue for the clinic. But before you agree to added work, you want your salary to be commensurate.
Armed with the knowledge that backs up your request for more money, one of two things will happen: Your employer will agree, and you’ll be temporarily satisfied, or they’ll be unable to grant your request, and you’ll know that you’re worth more and will begin looking elsewhere for better terms when your contract ends.
2. Seek Outside Work
If your time off is pretty consistent, you may want to supplement your income with a side job. As a physician, there are multiple options, including:
- Covering for doctors who must be out of work for extended periods,
- Working in areas of shortage in hospitals,
- Sign up for telemedicine visits,
- Signing on to read medical reports, such as X-rays and other imaging studies,
- Starting a blog or becoming an expert columnist for an existing blog site,
- Teaching classes/training modules online or in person, and
- Taking on a day or two in a short-staffed office.
When the job entails doctor/patient interaction, instead of signing a contract to work for a set amount of money, consider asking for wRVU terms. This stands for work relative value units. wRVU pay means that you receive a pre-determined credit for each patient you see or procedure you complete.
The work wRVU value is based on the complexity of the visit, the office or hospital’s expenses, and the malpractice premiums covering you. At the end of the pay period, those credits are added up and multiplied by the agreed-upon conversion factor. Instead of a set wage, regardless of how hard you work, you’ll be compensated for each patient/procedure. As long as you stay busy, you can make substantially more than you’d bring in with a salary.
3. Change Your Specialty
While physicians make good money, some specialties can demand more pay than others. In fact, out of the top 25 occupations in the world, medical professions take up most of the list! The only non-medicine jobs that have comparable pay (albeit at the bottom of the rankings) are airline pilots, chief executives, and IT workers.
You’ve already gone to school for more years than you likely want to repeat, but to make more money consistently, you may want to look into changing your specialty. If any of the following areas interest you, they’re at the top of the charts for maximum earnings in medicine:
- Cardiologists (over $350,000/year)
- Anesthesiologists (over $330,000/year)
- Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (over $311,000/year)
- Emergency Medicine Physicians (over $310,000/year)
- Orthopedic Surgeons; non-pediatric (over $306,000/year)
Dermatologists, radiologists, and other surgeons make close to those numbers. If the wage you see is considerably more than you’re making now, it could be worth a few more years in school to make millions of dollars more over the course of your career.
Conclusion
Finding ways to boost your income when you’re as skilled and knowledgeable as you already are can be as easy as asking for more money. But if that’s not a route available to you, consider working outside your regular hours or going back to school to learn a new specialty. Within a few years, you’ll have those life and financial goals solidly on track!
