Podiatrist Salary

[Lamboboss1]

Hello,
I wanted to know if current podiatrists could share their income? I have been seeing big differences online and wanted a more realistic figure.
Salary?
Years after residency?

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[Weirdy]

Use search function.

 

[GypsyHummus]

Bout Tree Fiddy.

 

[de Ribas]

Bout Tree Fiddy.

no way, really?

I hear average is half of that

 

[GypsyHummus]

Not for lochness monsta

no way, really?

I hear average is half of that

 

[de Ribas]

Not for lochness monsta

What you mean?

 

[ExperiencedDPM]

Salaries are all over the spectrum. But there’s more involved with your happiness than salary. How hard are you working. How challenging is your position. Are you utilizing all your skills. How happy are you with your employer. How stable is your job. What will be your status in this position in the next 5 years. What is your earning potential long term in this position. And so on and so on.

 

[GypsyHummus]

In your experience, If I was employed by the hospital to do 8-5 at a doing bread and butter pod stuff (corns and calluses, ingrown nails, nail removal, wound care, diabetic foot screenings, etc) with the occasional bunion or hammertoe every other week or month, what could I expect to be making realistically before taxes? What would a general profession trend in this scienerio look like, assuming physician responsibilities stayed the same, ie, no taking on residences, minimal community involvement, etc?

Is there call associated with these hospital positions? I'm assuming anything foot and ankle related would be taken care of by Emergency Med or bounced to Ortho. If they needed a follow up, they could wait until morning.

Have you ever seen a podiatrist take on hospital administrative duties?

Salaries are all over the spectrum. But there’s more involved with your happiness than salary. How hard are you working. How challenging is your position. Are you utilizing all your skills. How happy are you with your employer. How stable is your job. What will be your status in this position in the next 5 years. What is your earning potential long term in this position. And so on and so on.

 

[dtrack22]

In your experience, If I was employed by the hospital to do 8-5 at a doing bread and butter pod stuff (corns and calluses, ingrown nails, nail removal, wound care, diabetic foot screenings, etc) with the occasional bunion or hammertoe every other week or month, what could I expect to be making realistically before taxes?

I'm not sure a hospital would hire you if you aren't going to go to the OR more than a few times a month. Bread and butter stuff also doesn't require advanced imaging, referrals to other specialists or Physical Therapy. You would be losing a lot of downstream revenue, which would make me rather upset if I was your employer. You may be able to get on at a hospital that either a) has already embraced podiatry and the other DPMs want you to be their toenail b**** or b) has an ortho program like Baylor Scott & White that doesn't want you to touch anything proximal to the midfoot. Personally I don't think you have a shot against someone that has been in practice or is also just coming out who freely admits to the hospital that they want to work harder and do more than you do...unless you are willing to go to locations that no one else is.

To somewhat answer your question, I don't think you could expect to make any more than your base which at a hospital could be anywhere from $160-240k (I don't think I've heard of lower, but I know a lucky few have even higher bases than that). You just wouldn't hit the wRVU numbers required with a schedule like that. I also don't think you would stay employed for very long. I guess they could appreciate someone that doesn't cost them very much, but if you aren't bringing in more than facility fees and your own collections for the hospital they have some serious incentive to replace you IMO.

 

[GypsyHummus]

There are plenty of things a pod can do as a hospital employee tho besides surgery that makes money.

They have to send fungus for cultures, check to see if a foot is broken leading to X-rays, healing said fracture with a boot or cast and then sending them to physical therapy.

Poor circulation signs would get referrals to cardio in house for hospital.

These would just be my guesses. I mean, if they are paying you 150k and you are bringing in 190k, wouldn't that be incentive to keep you?

What about bread and butter stuff in a private practice setting, multispecilty, or Ortho? I would assume multispecilty would make you do more surgery and Ortho would have you be the nail guy.

I'm not sure a hospital would hire you if you aren't going to go to the OR more than a few times a month. Bread and butter stuff also doesn't require advanced imaging, referrals to other specialists or Physical Therapy. You would be losing a lot of downstream revenue, which would make me rather upset if I was your employer. You may be able to get on at a hospital that either a) has already embraced podiatry and the other DPMs want you to be their toenail b**** or b) has an ortho program like Baylor Scott & White that doesn't want you to touch anything proximal to the midfoot. Personally I don't think you have a shot against someone that has been in practice or is also just coming out who freely admits to the hospital that they want to work harder and do more than you do...unless you are willing to go to locations that no one else is.

To somewhat answer your question, I don't think you could expect to make any more than your base which at a hospital could be anywhere from $160-240k (I don't think I've heard of lower, but I know a lucky few have even higher bases than that). You just wouldn't hit the wRVU numbers required with a schedule like that. I also don't think you would stay employed for very long. I guess they could appreciate someone that doesn't cost them very much, but if you aren't bringing in more than facility fees and your own collections for the hospital they have some serious incentive to replace you IMO.

 

[ldsrmdude]

In your experience, If I was employed by the hospital to do 8-5 at a doing bread and butter pod stuff (corns and calluses, ingrown nails, nail removal, wound care, diabetic foot screenings, etc) with the occasional bunion or hammertoe every other week or month, what could I expect to be making realistically before taxes? What would a general profession trend in this scienerio look like, assuming physician responsibilities stayed the same, ie, no taking on residences, minimal community involvement, etc?

Is there call associated with these hospital positions? I'm assuming anything foot and ankle related would be taken care of by Emergency Med or bounced to Ortho. If they needed a follow up, they could wait until morning.

Have you ever seen a podiatrist take on hospital administrative duties?

I'll give my experience. For context, I've been employed by a hospital system now for about 4 months after working in private practice for around 2 years. I'd agree with @dtrack22 that you probably wouldn't be making much more than your base salary unless you were extremely busy in clinic. The days that I have surgery are by far my highest wRVU producing days. It's not impossible to produce a lot of wRVU outside of surgery, don't get me wrong. But a lot of my cases are non-elective amputations, I&Ds, etc and if I fit a toe amp during my lunch break, I can earn 25% more wRVU for that day just with that case ( CPT 28820 is 5.82 wRVU so I'm assuming ~20 wRVU per day which ends up around 5000 wRVU per year) and I don't miss out on seeing clinic patients. Wound care can produce good wRVU numbers, especially if you work in a wound center that is run efficiently and you fit in 15-20 patients in a half day.

As far as what the hospital expects out of you, it depends on the hospital. When the hospital system I work for now decided to employ podiatrists, they really had no idea what we do and didn't really understand the whole scope of our training. I think they would have been fine with us being in clinic and clipping toenails and occasionally ordering labs and imaging. Now, I'm in a bit of a unique situation where I don't work at the main campus of the hospital but at a location quite a distance from the main hospital, so I don't even do my surgeries at the hospital I work for, so I don't think they really expected a bunch of ancillary things. I do take call, but again, not at the hospital that I work for. It's mostly inpatient with occasional ED patients. Most trauma goes to ortho, but I will get some sent to my office. I'm starting to get some cases sent over from the local ortho docs because there are no foot and ankle ortho docs and I am friendly with most of the ortho guys.

I have seen podiatrists take on administrative duties as chief of staff, including at one of the hospitals I worked at as a resident. It's not common, but will probably become more common as podiatrists are more frequently found being employed by hospitals.

 

[dtrack22]

These would just be my guesses. I mean, if they are paying you 150k and you are bringing in 190k, wouldn't that be incentive to keep you?

No. If your salary is $150k you cost them way more than $190k. But instead of getting picky about the numbers you threw out, let’s assume you meant “wouldn’t $40k of profits for the hospital be incentive to keep you?”

Absolutely not. Look, they can find a podiatrist in the community to take diabetic foot pus call for free. Then he/she does those cases in the hospital as well as elective cases from his/her office. The hospital paid the podiatrist $0 and brought in a couple hundred thousand dollars in OR facility fees. They assume zero risk in terms of salary+benefits for a new employee and get a greater reward than what you are offering...good luck with that.

 

[GypsyHummus]

.....why would there be a podiatrist in the community taking diabetic foot calls for free vs the hospital employed podiatrist? Does the community podiatrist get hospital incentives in return? I'm confused about the scenario we are talking about.

I was under the assumption that hospital pods basically rule out private practice at that point.

No. If your salary is $150k you cost them way more than $190k. But instead of getting picky about the numbers you threw out, let’s assume you meant “wouldn’t $40k of profits for the hospital be incentive to keep you?”

Absolutely not. Look, they can find a podiatrist in the community to take diabetic foot pus call for free. Then he/she does those cases in the hospital as well as elective cases from his/her office. The hospital paid the podiatrist $0 and brought in a couple hundred thousand dollars in OR facility fees. They assume zero risk in terms of salary+benefits for a new employee and get a greater reward than what you are offering...good luck with that.

 

[dtrack22]

why would there be a podiatrist in the community taking diabetic foot calls for free vs the hospital employed podiatrist? Does the community podiatrist get hospital incentives in return?

Do you think every hospital already has employed podiatrists? Or even a majority of hospitals?

A large majority of hospitals currently do not have salaried podiatrists on staff. They have podiatrists in the community who see the hospital’s patients and bring cases to the hospital’s OR for free. If you don’t understand why a pod in the community would volunteer to do this then you are at a point in your education/training that this conversation is probably pointless...

If you want a hospital to salary you, you have to be more valuable than what they already have in place. Which, in most cases, is a doc in private practice who is more than happy to come see and operate on diabetic foot infections because he/she is trying to build a clinic or keep one full. The hospital may even be kind enough to have their primary docs and ED send you the stuff ortho doesn’t want, but you better believe that will stop if you aren’t bringing those patients back to the hospital if/when they need elective procedures done.

 

[ldsrmdude]

.....why would there be a podiatrist in the community taking diabetic foot calls for free vs the hospital employed podiatrist? Does the community podiatrist get hospital incentives in return? I'm confused about the scenario we are talking about.

I was under the assumption that hospital pods basically rule out private practice at that point.

The community pod can still bill for cases, consults, etc so they'd be taking call for free in the sense they aren't being paid by the hospital just to be on call, but they still bill and get paid from the patients insurance (assuming they have insurance) for the services they perform. Plus they get those patients that potentially follow-up and are seen for their next ulcer, routine foot care, etc.

 

[hematosis]

270k this year. Likely 290k next year. OR x 2 days per week, clinic 3. ~46-50hrs / wk so far but i will likely take more call next year.

 

[hematosis]

In your experience, If I was employed by the hospital to do 8-5 at a doing bread and butter pod stuff (corns and calluses, ingrown nails, nail removal, wound care, diabetic foot screenings, etc) with the occasional bunion or hammertoe every other week or month, what could I expect to be making realistically before taxes? What would a general profession trend in this scienerio look like, assuming physician responsibilities stayed the same, ie, no taking on residences, minimal community involvement, etc?

Is there call associated with these hospital positions? I'm assuming anything foot and ankle related would be taken care of by Emergency Med or bounced to Ortho. If they needed a follow up, they could wait until morning.

Have you ever seen a podiatrist take on hospital administrative duties?

You can get a kaiser non op position or Pod 1? Not sure exactly what the hell the title is but its a decent 200k. No call, and pretty straight forward, easy job. You are the sucker that does all the nails , callus, wounds, and see the post ops while the other surgical pods rack up 275-300k doing surgery and hangout/ sit in the ortho table.

You can also work in the VA and make a crapy 160k doing wounds, I/D and nail care. No need to wo

So its possible, but these jobs are not abundant and you are just limiting yourself but not using your surgical skills.

 

[de Ribas]

270k this year. Likely 290k next year. OR x 2 days per week, clinic 3. ~46-50hrs / wk so far but i will likely take more call next year.

in a hospital?

 

[ExperiencedDPM]

I believe at the present time, DPMs at the VA max out at about 150,000. But that’s based on climbing to that number after years of service/experience.

 

[de Ribas]

I believe at the present time, DPMs at the VA max out at about 150,000. But that’s based on climbing to that number after years of service/experience.

So, what could Pods expect if VA provider equity act becomes a law?

Are they going to be the same as for Foot and Ankle orthopedists pretty much?

 

[ExperiencedDPM]

So, what could Pods expect if VA provider equity act becomes a law?

Are they going to be the same as for Foot and Ankle orthopedists pretty much?

DPMs will be on the same pay scale.

 

[de Ribas]

DPMs will be on the same pay scale.

meaning they will get same pay for the same procedures?

 

[dtrack22]

I’m not sure the bill specifies which tier of which pay table podiatrists will fall under. So DPMs aren’t necessarily going to pay table 4 with the orthos where they can max out at $400k.

 

[ExperiencedDPM]

I’m not sure the bill specifies which tier of which pay table podiatrists will fall under. So DPMs aren’t necessarily going to pay table 4 with the orthos where they can max out at $400k.

You are correct. I doubt any DPM working for the VA will be making 400k

 

[DexterMorganSK]

You are correct. I doubt any DPM working for the VA will be making 400k

I might have read the proposed bill wrong, but I thought DPMs in a VA system will not be getting the "physician" title but will see a pay increase than what they are receiving today?

 

[ExperiencedDPM]

I might have read the bill wrong, but I thought DPMs in a VA system, will not be getting the "physician" title but will see a pay increase than what they are receiving today?

I don’t know. I didn’t look at it that closely.

 

[de Ribas]

I might have read the proposed bill wrong, but I thought DPMs in a VA system will not be getting the "physician" title but will see a pay increase than what they are receiving today?

I read actual Bill many times. there is also an option to see both, original and amended side by side. it's a little confusing though about the definition of a physician. As far as I understand, this bill will not change any definitions. Anyways, podiatrists are physicians as defined by states and many other organizations.

I think the following was not liked so much and it was removed. I don't see how this would change the whole definition of podiatrists anyways. Because it was only for the purposes of that specific chapter.


7413.
Treatment of podiatrists

For purposes of this chapter, the term physician includes a podiatrist.





But podiatrists will be able to hold leadership roles and be within the same pay grade as MD/DO/DMD/DDS.

Text of H.R. 1058: VA Provider Equity Act (Passed the House version) - GovTrack.us

 

[hematosis]

I believe at the present time, DPMs at the VA max out at about 150,000. But that’s based on climbing to that number after years of service/experience.

Not that it matters but its about 22k more than that. This guy steven vyce made 172k in 2016. It's also location based. I agree its after years of experience.

Source:
Employee Profile of Steven D. Vyce — Podiatrist

 

[de Ribas]

Not that it matters but its about 22k more than that. This guy steven vyce made 172k in 2016. It's also location based. I agree its after years of experience.

Source:
Employee Profile of Steven D. Vyce — Podiatrist

That link is very interesting. You can see so much data.

That pay is under AD-15, meaning administrative role? Because VP grade is about 155K. Dr. Vyce is in top 10%

Hopefully that VA act can pass and make a change

 

[Lamboboss1]

So is it safe to say that a podiatrist right after residency will make between 110-150?

 

[GypsyHummus]

not everyone.

there are still those who get below 100K.

If you look at VA, they have lost of podiatrists below 100K.

Hopefully that will change with the new bill

 

[Windom Earle]

270k this year. Likely 290k next year. OR x 2 days per week, clinic 3. ~46-50hrs / wk so far but i will likely take more call next year.

How long have you been in practice? And if I may, what was your starting salary?

 

[Lamboboss1]

Earnings of podiatrists depend upon geographic location, type of practice.

 

[hematosis]

How long have you been in practice? And if I may, what was your starting salary?

This is is my first year practicing. I completed a 1 year fellowship in Germany. It was helpful but I don't think you need it. Especially if you trained at a decent residency program. I work at a well known hospital. They didn't have a Podiatrist and I met with a few of the orthopods and hospital administrators a few times and essentially created the position I am in now. They had two f/a orthopods and one of them retired, the other one was looking for help and it just so happened that I contacted the hospital at the right time. They were referring their foot and ankle cases and I made a proposal to take half the salary and do more. I now do most of the limb salvage/amputations which were getting sent out or sometimes bounced to vasc and general surgery and they didn't want anything to do with it. Most of these were getting referred out to local wound care centers and private DPM's. I am never short of patients and i've made the hospital plenty of money. I have full admitting privileges , little to no competition with the F/A orthopod. We split ER calls, trauma. He likes to do the TAR which I could care less for. I have recently been given an NP to help with consults and wound care. Ive teamed up with the ID and Vascular to create a multidisciplinary approach to our wound care patients and were seeing better results. We are in talk of hiring a second Podiatrist. You would be surprised to know how little the general medical profession knows about Podiatry.
This is exactly how I imagined my career to be and so far i'm having a lot of fun with it.

 

[Windom Earle]

This is is my first year practicing. I completed a 1 year fellowship in Germany. It was helpful but I don't think you need it. Especially if you trained at a decent residency program. I work at a well known hospital. They didn't have a Podiatrist and I met with a few of the orthopods and hospital administrators a few times and essentially created the position I am in now. They had two f/a orthopods and one of them retired, the other one was looking for help and it just so happened that I contacted the hospital at the right time. They were referring their foot and ankle cases and I made a proposal to take half the salary and do more. I now do most of the limb salvage/amputations which were getting sent out or sometimes bounced to vasc and general surgery and they didn't want anything to do with it. Most of these were getting referred out to local wound care centers and private DPM's. I am never short of patients and i've made the hospital plenty of money. I have full admitting privileges , little to no competition with the F/A orthopod. We split ER calls, trauma. He likes to do the TAR which I could care less for. I have recently been given an NP's to help with consults and wound care. Ive teamed up with the ID and Vascular to create a multi multidisciplinary approach to our wound care patients and were seeing better results. We are in talk of hiring a second Podiatrist. You would be surprised to know how little the general medical profession knows about Podiatry.
This is exactly how I imagined my career to be and so far i'm having a lot of fun with it.

WOW.

 

[DexterMorganSK]

This is is my first year practicing. I completed a 1 year fellowship in Germany. It was helpful but I don't think you need it. Especially if you trained at a decent residency program. I work at a well known hospital. They didn't have a Podiatrist and I met with a few of the orthopods and hospital administrators a few times and essentially created the position I am in now. They had two f/a orthopods and one of them retired, the other one was looking for help and it just so happened that I contacted the hospital at the right time. They were referring their foot and ankle cases and I made a proposal to take half the salary and do more. I now do most of the limb salvage/amputations which were getting sent out or sometimes bounced to vasc and general surgery and they didn't want anything to do with it. Most of these were getting referred out to local wound care centers and private DPM's. I am never short of patients and i've made the hospital plenty of money. I have full admitting privileges , little to no competition with the F/A orthopod. We split ER calls, trauma. He likes to do the TAR which I could care less for. I have recently been given an NP to help with consults and wound care. Ive teamed up with the ID and Vascular to create a multidisciplinary approach to our wound care patients and were seeing better results. We are in talk of hiring a second Podiatrist. You would be surprised to know how little the general medical profession knows about Podiatry.
This is exactly how I imagined my career to be and so far i'm having a lot of fun with it.

Thank you for sharing your experience, it's very inspiring.

Your post should be an eye-opener to all those new to this field. What we as a pre-pod or pod student should get from your post is that jobs will not just be handed down to us (with a set salary) and we will not only have to find jobs/positions but in some instances, create them.

My hope is that within the next 3-4 years, the field of Podiatry itself and what a can DPM can do will be a little more known within the healthcare community.

 

[I post PRN]

No. If your salary is $150k you cost them way more than $190k. But instead of getting picky about the numbers you threw out, let’s assume you meant “wouldn’t $40k of profits for the hospital be incentive to keep you?”

Absolutely not. Look, they can find a podiatrist in the community to take diabetic foot pus call for free. Then he/she does those cases in the hospital as well as elective cases from his/her office. The hospital paid the podiatrist $0 and brought in a couple hundred thousand dollars in OR facility fees. They assume zero risk in terms of salary+benefits for a new employee and get a greater reward than what you are offering...good luck with that.

Good points. I take call at 2 community hospitals, neither pays me to be on call. Given I make $ seeing consults, doing their surgeries, etc. but like dtrack said, they can make money on you without paying you.