I've been curious where my salary matches up with the national averages for a while (which is how I ended up on this thread; actually I joined SDN just so I could write this). After talking with friends in private practice these numbers actually seem to be about right for private practice pathology. I'm hemepath trained, working in a quasi-academic setting in the southeast. I'm employed by a fairly large academic medical center, but work in a community hospital based setting. Most of my effort is in signing out cases, with some fairly minor teaching responsibilities (couple hours a month) and some minor research stuff. Looking back at last year I signed out just over 5700 cases, including about 85 bone marrows (I also split reading the professional side of flow and hemeFISH with another hempath in our group). I have good communication skills (non-PC translation - I'm a white American male who gets along well with the surgeons, gastroenterologists, oncologists, etc). I've been asked to interview for a few other jobs since starting this one (I'm coming up on my 3rd year out of fellowship) but am overall pretty happy with my current job and my family likes where we live so I just haven't pursued other possibilities. Currently I make low 200's (with benefits, closer to mid 200's).
With all that in mind what are people's thoughts on this salary - should I just be happy with this level of pay or am I making way less than I should? I have no idea what my billing and collection numbers are (even though I have asked for this info on more than one occasion).
PS - if any of my colleagues are reading this and know its me writing it, I'm not planning on leaving...that is unless someone on here tells me I'm really getting screwed