Many factors determine whether a physician job is a good fit, particularly in today’s healthcare environment. While money isn’t everything, how much you make in salary as an internal medicine physician is likely a big part of this. You should know your worth and ask for it. Having access to salary data allows salary transparency about what the average internal medicine doctor makes. This information is important for leverage, and you need it during your contract negotiations for a new job.
On our physician communities, we’ve seen so many physicians express that they’ve been undervalued in the marketplace, and have therefore tried to provide both concrete data points (so you can compares apples to apples) as well as compile aggregate physician salary data on what doctors make, and making it available to our members for free, as opposed to having to pay for expensive databases.
Reported averages on physician salaries depend on several factors. Given the wide range of compensation across specialties, specialty is one of the largest factors in answering the question of how much doctors make. We’ve started this series on compensation data by specialty to assess aggregate data from our physician salary and compensation database provided by physicians across the country.
Other factors such as hours worked, location, and practice environment all play a large role as well, so we look at differences in some of these categories within the specialty as well.
Unless otherwise noted, the salary data on what internal medicine physicians make included in our analysis below was collected from mid-2023 through mid-2024.
Disclaimers/Disclosures: This information is derived from our physician salary and compensation databases, but is subject to self-reporting errors and availability of relevant data points from our online communities. This information is provided for educational purposes only, and is aimed at advocating for individual physicians. It is not intended to be used for collective bargaining; please see additional disclosures and disclaimers on the physician salary data pages. Please also do your own research before making any decisions based on the information provided. We are not formal financial, legal, or tax professionals and do not provide individualized advice. You should consult these as appropriate. We highly recommend having your physician employment agreement reviewed by a physician contract review attorney to ensure you have the most up to date and relevant information for your specific situation.
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How Much Does an Internal Medicine Doctor Make in 2024?
Coming up with one single average salary for internal medicine doctors is difficult because of the vast number of sub-specialty options available in this medical field. To determine how much an internal medicine doctor makes, we’ll start by looking strictly at the main three career tracks for IM doctors who are not practicing as subspecialists:
General internal medicine
Ambulatory only (no inpatient)
Internal medicine hospitalists
Then below, we’ll dive deeper into how much internal medicine doctors make in common sub-specialties, as well as by other key factors to help you gauge a more relevant average based on your career and current position.
The average annual salary for internal medicine physicians who contributed to our salary and compensation data for 2024 was $300,000. This excludes residents or fellows, focusing on attending physicians.
Average Full-Time Internal Medicine Physician Salary for 2024
Many IM doctors practice part-time, which can skew the average salary, so we wanted to look at average pay for full-time versus part-time physicians separately.
For a full-time equivalent, we assumed an average number of hours worked a week of 36 hours or more. We omitted any data points that did not specify their average.
The average salary in 2024 for a full-time internal medicine doctor was $306,000. To give you an idea on the range of salaries, a few extra stats:
The highest reported salaries were in the $650,00-$700,000 a year range.
The lowest reported salaries were in the $150,000 a year range.
The median salary was $300,000.
Average Part-Time Internal Medicine Physician Salary for 2024
Several of our members reported working part-time.
To assess a part-time average, we looked at attending physicians who reported working 16-35 hours a week.
The average part-time internal medicine salary in 2024 was $260,000.
How Much Does an Internal Medicine Doctor Make by Career Track
For internal medicine, we’ll look at specialization by two different metrics: career path and sub-specialty. Both of these distinctions can make a difference in the average salary.
General internal medicine salary: $317,000
Internal medicine hospitalist: $315,000
Ambulatory only (no inpatient): $272,000
General IM and IM hospitalist doctors reported about the same average salaries for 2024, making about 15% more than their colleagues working ambulatory only.
Internal Medicine Physician Pay by Specialization
Next, we look at specialization. There are a ton of different specializations for internal medicine, and we hope to cover and expand upon them all in dedicated articles as the 2024 database grows.
Contribute your physician salary and compensation data today (it’s completely anonymous) if you haven’t already for 2024 if you would like to see your specialty featured. We will continue to revise and update our salary and compensation by specialty series as we get enough relevant data to pull aggregate information.
For now, we’re going to look at a few popular specializations:
Cardiology: $583,000 a year
Endocrinology: $289,000 a year
Gastroenterology: $611,000 a year
Hematology/oncology: $494,000 a year
Infectious disease: $310,000 a year
Nephrology: $366,000 a year
Pulmonology: $451,000 a year
Rheumatology: $269,000 a year
Salaries range significantly based on specialization. Doctors in our highest paid specialty featured (gastroenterology) make over 2x as much as our lowest paid specialty (rheumatology). This large difference is a key example of why we urge our physician members to make sure they are comparing relevant data when looking for salary and compensation data for their physician contract employment negotiations.
Internal Medicine Physician Salary by Gender
We looked at reported salaries for full-time physicians ( 36+ hours a week) and compared what our female physicians averaged compared to their male counterparts, excluding all other factors (such as specialization, location, etc.).
Female internal medicine doctors reported an average salary of $292,000. Male IM physicians reported an average salary of $325,000.
When looking strictly at the average salaries overall, our male doctors averaged 11% higher than our female doctors.
How Much Internal Medicine Doctors Make by Practice Environment
Looking at full-time attending IM doctors, we broke the data down by where our members reported working to assess the average pay differences by practice environment.
Corporate group, non private equity - $324,000
Corporate group, private equity - $314,000
FQHC and other non-profits - not enough data points to assess
Government - $269,000
Group private practice, non private equity backed - $358,000
Group private practice, private equity backed - $290,000
Academic hospital employee - $272,000
Non-academic hospital employee - $315,000
Solo private practice - not enough data
Looking at data just by practice environment, internal medicine physicians working for the government (VA, city hospital, etc.) reported the lowest salaries. These positions often, however, qualify for Public Student Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), which can be a significant benefit in the overall compensation package, which is one of the reasons we say to consider not just the salary but the entire proposed offer.
Our non-academic hospital employee IM doctors made an average 16% more than their academic counterparts, outside of other factors and compensation components.
Our doctors working in non private equity settings made more than their private equity counterparts, both in corporate and private groups, with our internal medicine physicians working in non private equity backed group private practices reporting the highest average pay in 2024 across the different practice environments.
Internal Medicine Physician Salary by Type of Employment
When submitting data, our physician members indicated their type of employment. Looking at full-time attendings in internal medicine:
1099 (single entity regular job, 1099 arrangement) - not enough data to assess
W2 employee - $302,000 a year
Locums/per diem - not enough data*
Partner/owner - $350,000 a year
All other factors aside, partners and owners averaged 16% higher than W2 employees for 2024.
Related PSG resources to explore:
* We have a separate locums pay and compensation data set, and have looked at the statistics on locum tenens compensation for doctors separately, where there is much more data about this.
Internal Medicine Physician Salary by Location
We looked at salary differences among states for full-time (36+ average hours a week) IM doctors. States with less than 10 data points were omitted from our analysis. If you don’t see your state listed and want to see where it stacks up, contribute your physician salary and compensation data today.
California - $338,000 a year
Florida - $292,000 a year
Georgia - $286,000 a year
Illinois - $297,000 a year
Indiana - $277,000 a year
New Jersey - $302,000 a year
New York - $275,000 a year
North Carolina - $283,000 a year
Ohio - $291,000 a year
Pennsylvania - $282,000 a year
Texas - $329,000 a year
Wisconsin - $358,000 a year
The highest paid state (Wisconsin) pays 30% more than the salary of the lowest paid state (New York), highlighting the difference in the average salaries depending on which state our physician members live in and the importance of geographic arbitrage. While city and local metropolitan areas can factor heavily into the cost of living, and how much a physician actually brings home depends on state and local taxes, assessing different salary options across the country and comparing them to the cost of living can give physicians the potential to geoarbitrage if they are willing to move. Just make sure you know what is included in cost of living comparisons (taxes are often excluded and can be significant).
How Much Internal Medicine Doctors Make by Hours Worked
Medicine can often be an “eat what you kill” industry, so we wanted to look at how much internal medicine doctors made in 2024 by reported hours worked.
36-40 hours a week average - $286,000 a year
41-45 hours a week average - $307,000 a year
46-50 hours a week average - $307,000 a year
51-60 hours a week average - $327,000 a year
61-70 hours a week average - $332,000 a year
71-80 hours a week average - $317,000 a year
81+ hours a week average - $332,000 a year
It’s important to note when looking at the data for average hours worked a week that many of our IM hospitalists work 7-on-7-off shifts. So while they can average 70+ to 80+ hours a week on their working weeks (this is the majority of the respondents in the 60+ range), they may on the whole be working less weeks, thus skewing the data for those working 70+ hours a week.
In general, accounting for the difference in reporting based on schedules by career track, we see the general trend of average salary increasing with hours worked. When assessing the difference in pay, however, our physicians show a general trend of around 6%-7% increase in pay versus a 13%-20% increase in the average number of hours worked, which may or may not be worth it in your situation, depending on the work-life balance you’re hoping to achieve.
As an aside, we know that so many internal medicine doctors spend a lot of time at home charting. You may have heard us talking about AI scribes on the physician communities. They are becoming more and more widespread, and can dramatically decrease the amount of time you spend charting.
We have a free trial and a long standing discount on an AI scribing solution in our practice resources for physicians, in case you need one!
Changes in Average Internal Medicine Physician Salary Over Time
As noted above, the data analyzed included contributions from mid 2023 to mid 2024, reflecting data from our most recent salary and compensation database.
We also dug into our previous salary database we started in 2018 to get an idea of the trends in how much internal medicine physicians make over time. To compare relative data, we continued to look only at IM doctors out of residency/fellowship who worked on average 36+ hours a week. For 2023, we combined the data from the old data and the new database, cutting off entries at the transition point to help omit any overlapping or duplicate information.
2018-2019: $258,000
2020-2021: $252,000
2022-2023: $297,000
While reported salaries were stagnant during 2018-2021, and even dipped a little from 2018-2019 to 2020-2021, we saw a 18% increase from 2020-2021 to 2022-2023.
With our average internal medicine salary of $306,000 from our new database covering mid 2023 to mid 2024, we can see salaries continuing to increase for 2024. We hope with continued salary transparency, this trend will continue.
Extra Insights from Internal Medicine Physicians
As part of our salary and compensation data contributions, members of our physician online community can provide additional comments. A few that might be of use to other internal medicine doctors:
Increasing Your Internal Medicine Physician Salary
If the information above has you questioning your current salary, there are a few different ways to increase your income as an internal medicine doctor. But a reminder first: look at the overall picture, taking into consideration all the factors included above and others, such as other compensation in the overall employment package such as amount of PTO, call responsibilities, 401(k) match, etc.
Salary is a key component to physician compensation, but it isn’t the only part of a well negotiated physician employment contract.
If you like where you work but don’t love the pay, consider setting aside a time to talk with management. If you are a valued part of their team, they may be willing to work with you to renegotiate your contract versus risking you leaving. Their answer may be no, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. Be practical in what you’re expecting and respectful in your request. Diving deeper into the salary and compensation data for physicians for comparable situations can help you get a target idea of what to try to renegotiate for.
Looking for additional career opportunities can also help. Sometimes, an employer may either not be able to or just not willing to work with you to get you to where you should be. That doesn’t mean every job will come with the same constraints. Interviewing for a few other positions can give you a feel of what the market looks like from the employer’s perspective by what employers are willing to offer. Explore open opportunities on our Physician Side Gigs job board, and explore all our physician career resources and education to help you navigate the job search process.
While we think the data above and in our database can be a great tool during the negotiation process, we almost always also recommend hiring a local contract review attorney for physicians to review your contract. They will have invaluable experience when it comes to negotiating physician contracts, including understanding what red flags to watch out for.
If you’re looking to increase your income in internal medicine but are already at or above your market’s rate, you have options in this situation as well. Opportunities to consider include:
Physician influencer debunking myths or educating on common medical issues
Explore side gigs for internal medicine doctors or check out all our side gigs for physicians for more information on these and other ways to increase your income.
Additional Salary and Career Resources for Internal Medicine Physicians
Explore our related articles and resources on doctor compensation and salaries:
If you haven’t recently, please take a few minutes to contribute! The data provided is used only for the purpose of our database to help physicians like yourself negotiate better compensation by helping provide salary transparency with relevant data. The data is completely anonymous and is only available to members of our Physician Side Gigs Facebook group. Contribution links can be found on our compensation data for physicians page.
Looking for a new career opportunity? Explore the Physician Side Gigs job board for current opportunities.
If you need guidance on negotiating your next contract for the best possible deal, check out: