Radiologist pay jumps 18% as health systems compete for physicians
Despite the increasingly unpredictable landscape of the healthcare sector, radiologists’ total cash compensation has remained steady, with some of the specialists enjoying an 18% increase in pay since 2024.
That’s according to new data from SullivanCotter’s 2026 Physician Compensation and Productivity Survey. The consulting firm’s annual survey includes data from 575 healthcare organizations representing approximately 235,000 physicians across 240 specialties. It contains detailed information organizations can use to help them navigate rising physician pay expectations, recruitment pressures and the changing metrics that define productivity.
According to the data, median total cash compensation increased year over year in 2026 across all major physician specialty categories. Adult medical specialties posted the largest gain, rising 7.2% from 2025 and 25.2% over the past five years.
Radiology also saw substantial compensation growth. Since 2024, total cash compensation has increased between 12% and 18% across diagnostic, interventional and breast radiology. SullivanCotter said similar compensation growth in radiology and anesthesiology has contributed to changes in physician employment models and consolidation among private practices, particularly where reimbursement has not kept pace with the compensation needed to recruit physicians.
Productivity gains, however, have been more modest. Year-over-year work relative value unit (wRVU) productivity increased between 0.8% in primary care and 2.8% in adult medical specialties. Adult medical specialties have recorded the largest productivity increase for two consecutive years.
The data come as organizations reconsider how much work physicians are expected to take on and how compensation plans are structured. Base salary and wRVU productivity remain the most common compensation components for primary care, medical and surgical specialties. Individual productivity and patient experience also were used by 73% of responding organizations as physician incentive measures, while clinical outcome measures saw one of the larger increases, rising 8 percentage points from 2025 to reach 55% prevalence in 2026.
Recruitment incentives are also becoming more common. Nearly 95% of physicians received sign-on bonuses in 2026, while 49% of organizations offered student loan repayment programs.
The survey also found that nearly 65% of participating organizations plan to increase their physician workforce over the next year. SullivanCotter said organizations are balancing the need to remain competitive on compensation while also considering the growing physician interest in flexibility and work-life balance.
“These organizations are caught between forces pulling in opposite directions: pressure to keep pace on compensation, while recruits are increasingly prioritizing flexibility,” Ted Tackett, Principal, SullivanCotter, said in a release on the findings. “Recruitment incentives that used to be reserved for hard-to-fill specialties are now standard practice almost everywhere.”
For radiology practices, the combination of rising compensation expectations, reimbursement pressures and evolving productivity models will likely have an impact on whether groups remain independent, consolidate or pursue different employment arrangements.
Read more from the survey here.
In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She began covering the medical imaging industry for Innovate Healthcare in 2021.