Interventional radiologists earn more than their diagnostic counterparts, though the gap is narrowing

Interventional radiologists in academia earn more than their diagnostic counterparts, though the gap is narrowing, according to new research published Monday. 

The reported median, 25th and 75th percentile compensation for interventional faculty were consistently higher than diagnostic radiologists, 2017-2023 salary data from the Association of American Medical Colleges show. This trend persisted across all academic ranks except department chairs, where the opposite was observed, experts wrote in the Journal of Interventional and Vascular Radiology [1]. 

However, between 2020-2023, the difference in compensation narrowed for all ranks, falling from 9% to 5% for assistant professors. By 2023, the IR-DR gap had fallen to $67,000 (15%) for instructors, $24,000 (5%) for assistant professors, $38,000 (7%) for associate professors, $43,000 (8%) for professors, $75,000 (12%) for chiefs and -$22,000 (-3%) for chairs. 

Overall, median compensation for interventional academic radiologists has increased by a rate of about 5% per year for instructors and 3%-3.6% for all other ranks. 

“Despite a national workforce shortage and increasing procedure demands, IR faculty compensation has only paced inflation in recent years, overall increasing with rank, and is overall higher than for DR counterparts,” lead author Ajay Malhotra, MD, with Yale’s Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, and colleagues concluded. “Pay differences across gender and racial/ethnic groups merit additional attention and consideration.”

For the study, researchers utilized data from the AAMC, which surveys U.S. medical schools annually. Information from last year incorporated responses from 874 IR faculty members including 21 instructors, 457 assistant professors, 208 associate professors, 130 full professors, 42 chiefs and 16 chairs. They found that pay for women IR specialists was consistently lower than men. In 2023, female IR instructors earned about $35,000 (or 8.4%) less than male colleagues with similar gaps for assistant ($33,000/7.5%), associate ($26,000/5.1%) and full professors ($32,000/6.2%). 

Meanwhile, when compared to white assistant professors, Asian interventional radiologists earned about 94 cents on the dollar. Black IRs earned about 97 cents on the dollar, and Latinos collected 95 cents on the dollar, despite holding the same rank. 

“Addressing these trends is critical to attracting and retaining the best talent for ensuring a robust pipeline of academic IRs to provide high-complexity services, teach the next generation of IRs, and advance interventional radiology research,” the authors wrote. “Declining reimbursements for IR procedures have only added to the challenges,” they noted, citing a 2021 JVIR study, which found that inflation-adjusted IR reimbursement declined 18.7% from 2012-2020. 

Follow-up studies could potentially explore how productivity impacts these salary figures. Consolidation in nonacademic practices has led to increasing numbers of IR-focused doc groups that are able to match the subspecialty opportunities available in academia, the authors noted. A 2021 survey from the Society of Interventional Radiology found that private practice IRs reported higher median tenured compensation ($573,000) versus academic IRs ($451,000). However, private practice IRs reported more frequent on-call duties and needing to spend 26% of their time on interpreting diagnostic images. 

Read more, including potential study limitations, at the link below.