Physician compensation continues to climb faster than productivity, according to a new report from consulting firm SullivanCotter.
The firm’s “2026 Physician Compensation and Productivity Survey,” found that median total cash compensation rose year over year across all major specialties even as productivity gains lagged behind — a gap that has persisted for a second straight year in adult medical specialties, according to a Sept. 17 news release from SullivanCotter.
The report includes data from 575 healthcare organizations and about 235,000 physicians across 240 specialties.
Here are nine things to know:
- Median total cash compensation (TCC) rose year-over-year across all major specialties, continuing to outpace productivity gains.
- Adult medical specialties saw 7.2% TCC growth from 2025 to 2026, and a cumulative 25.2% gain over the past five years.
- On the productivity side, primary care work relative value units rose 0.8% year-over-year, while adult medical specialties rose 2.8% — the second consecutive year adult medical specialties posted the highest productivity growth among the groups tracked.
- Clinical outcome measures factored into compensation plans at 55% of organizations, up eight percentage points from 2025; individual productivity incentives and patient experience measures each factored in at 73% of organizations.
- Nearly 95% of physicians received sign-on bonuses in 2026.
- Just under half of organizations (49%) now offer student loan repayment programs.
- The 2026 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule raised the conversion factor for the first time in six years, but CMS also applied a 2.5% efficiency adjustment that reduced work RVU values for nearly 7,000 non-time-based CPT codes — a cut that is set to happen every three years.
- For 2027, CMS has proposed reducing the conversion factor by 1.2% for CMS Advanced Alternative Payment Model participants and 1.7% for non-APM participants.
- Nearly 65% of surveyed organizations plan to expand their physician workforce in the next year.
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