Comparison of Army/Air Force and Private-Sector Physicians' Total Compensation, by Medical Specialty (Supplement to Health Professions' Retention-Accession Incentives Study)
Published Date: February 1, 2001
The Military Health System (MHS) is charged with maintaining a healthy active duty force, attending to the sick and wounded in time of conflict, and sucessfully competing for and treating patients within peacetime benefit mission. The military must attract and retain high-quality health care professionals. These issues are particularly important for military health care professionals because they are costly to access and train, and they have skills that are readily interchangeable to the private sector. The TRICARE Management Agency (TMA) asked the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) to study appropriate compensation, special pays, and bonuses for military health care professionals. CNA conducted a comparative analysis of current compensation (cash and benefits) between Army and Air Force physicians and private-sector physicians. Our analysis shows that the current military-civilian physician pay gap varies widely depending on specialty and years in service.
