Salary is a big part of whether a job ultimately ends up being a good fit, so it’s important for physicians to know their worth in the job market and ask for it. Having access to salary data empowers physicians to know whether they are being compensated appropriately. We believe ENTs need salary transparency about what the average otolaryngologist salary is, as well as about other typical parts of the compensation package, so that they can leverage this information during contract negotiations.
We have therefore tried to provide both concrete data points as well as compile physician salary data on what doctors make, and make it available to our members for free, as opposed to having to pay for expensive databases. Using data gathered from our physician online communities, we have 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. Members of our online physician communities also have access to the raw data on these databases, so they compare data from positions similar to those that they are considering.
Reported averages on physician salaries depend on several factors. Given the wide range of compensation across specialties, specialty remains one of the largest factors in answering the question of how much doctors make. Other factors such as hours worked, specialization, and practice environment all play a large role, so we look at differences in some of these categories within the specialty as well.
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 Aggregate Otolaryngologist (ENT) Salary Statistics Were Determined
The data for ENTs below was compiled using 70 data points anonymously contributed to our database between mid-2023 and mid-2024. While we typically like to have more data points before assessing aggregate statistics for a specialty, this can be hard to obtain for highly specialized fields of medicine or specialties with less physicians. Unless otherwise noted, the stats below are for full-time practicing otolaryngologists, determined based on a full-time equivalency of an average 36+ hours worked a week.
Smaller datasets may be less representative of the overall landscape of the specialty. As such, a reminder to access the full free doctor salary and negotiation database to compare your situation to relevant data points available.
We would love to reassess the statistics and further expand insights based upon future data. As such, we will continue to update this page as more contributions are received.
If you haven’t already, please contribute your 2024 physician salary and negotiation data to help others in your specialty.
How Much Does an Otolaryngologist (ENT) Make in 2024?
The average annual salary across all our otolaryngologists (ENTs) who contributed to our salary and compensation data was $561,000 for 2024. This excludes residents or fellows, focusing on attending physicians.
Providing a single average annual salary for an ear, nose, and throat doctor, however, can be misleading, as several different factors come into play. We break this number down to help you find more relevant comparison points.
Average Full-Time Otolaryngologist (ENT) Salary for 2024
Many otolaryngologists work full-time, but part-time contributions can skew the overall average, so let’s look at them separately.
The average salary for a full-time otolaryngologist for 2024 was $579,000. To give you an idea on the range of the salary around the average, a few extra stats:
The highest reported salaries were in the $1,000,000 - $1,250,000 range.
The lowest reported salaries were in the $200,000 - $300,000 range.
The median full-time salary was $500,000.
Average Part-Time Otolaryngologist (ENT) Salary for 2024
Several of our ENTs reported working part-time. To assess a part-time average, we looked at otolaryngologists who reported working 16-35 hours a week.
The average part-time salary for an otolaryngologist for 2024 was $461,000.
How Much ENTs Make by Specialization
ENTs contributing to our physician salary and compensation database have the option of noting a sub specialization. We don’t have enough data to to assess average salaries by specialization at this time, though we can note a few observations.
Facial plastic and reconstructive surgery. Our reported FPRS salaries tended to be below the average for otolaryngology, ranging from $290,000 - $456,000, but the data points we have in this field are for ENTs who work in academic hospitals, which are typically among the lowest paid practice environments.
Neurotology. Reported salaries for neurotologists ranged from $300,000 - $700,000, showing a wide range around the average, so we will need more data to assess how this specialization compares against others.
Pediatric otolaryngology. Data points we have for ENTs who specialize in pediatrics ranged from $385,000 - $510,000, which are below the average for otolaryngology. The exception is for a partner/owner in a practice ($800,000), which can heavily influence earning potential within a specialty.
Rhinology. All data points we have for ENTs who specialize in rhinology are below the average for otolaryngology, ranging from $330,000 - $425,000.
Again, we will have to see if these statistics hold as we get more data points, and in the meantime would encourage those comparing specialties in these fields to look at the individual data points on our physician salary databases to make apples to apples comparisons that account for practice environment, location, and owner versus employee.
Otolaryngologist Salary by Gender
We looked at reported salaries and compared what our female physicians averaged compared to their male counterparts.
Female ENT doctors reported an average salary of $518,000. Male otolaryngologists reported an average salary of $687,000.
When looking strictly at the average salaries overall, our male doctors averaged 33% higher salaries than our female doctors, which is a much larger gender gap than we’ve typically seen in our how much doctors make by specialty series.
Sub specialization or practice ownership may play a role in this large gap, but even when accounting for these, our data suggests a gender gap.
We hope to further dig into the differences as our database expands.
How Much Otolaryngologists Make by Practice Environment
We also broke the data down by where our members reported working to assess the average pay differences by practice environment.
Group private practice, non private equity backed - $809,000
Academic hospital employee - $514,000
Non-academic hospital employee - $548,000
Our otolaryngologists in group private practices reported the highest average salaries by far. They made 57% more than colleagues working for academic hospitals and 48% more than those working for non-academic hospitals. In fact, the top seven reported salaries for ENTs–all in the 7-figure range–came from doctors working in private practice. Five of these were salaries by partners/owners in their practice.
We’re no stranger to the benefits of working in private practice, and have a host of resources for doctors working in this practice environment.
Explore:
When looking just at hospital settings, ENTs working for non-academic hospitals averaged 7% higher salaries than those at academic hospitals.
Interestingly, we noted that we didn’t have a single otolaryngologist report working for a private equity backed practice.
We would love to expand this section to include average salaries for ENTs in other practice environments such as solo private practice, government facilities, and corporate groups. If you haven’t yet for this year, please consider taking a few minutes to contribute to our physician salary and compensation database to help us expand in the future.
Otolaryngologist Salary by Type of Employment
We often see a different earning potential depending on the type of employment, so we looked at that next.
1099 (single entity regular job, 1099 arrangement) - not enough data to assess
W2 employee - $546,000 a year
Locums/per diem - not enough data to assess*
Partner/owner, including solo private practices - $709,000 a year
Partner/owner, group private practices only - $913,000 a year
All other factors aside, our data suggests there is significant growth potential for otolaryngologists who are looking for a partner track or are interested in owning their own practice. Partners and owners averaged 30% higher than W2 employees.
Interestingly, the partners and owners of group ENT private practices did significantly better than solo private practices, which may speak to the ability to reduce overhead, scale practices, and add ancillary practice income streams such as ambulatory surgery centers with the added resources that come from having more physicians in a practice.
While being an owner/partner includes more administrative duties, our current data shows that otolaryngologists in this role average roughly the same number of hours worked a week as W-2 employees, which suggests a similar work/life balance.
Learn more about assessing a private practice partnership opportunity.
* 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.
ENT Doctor Salary by Location
We generally like to have a minimum of 10 data points to assess an average salary by location. Our ENTs are spread across the country, so we don’t have average salaries by state that we can currently report with confidence.
If you haven’t for this calendar year, please contribute your physician salary and negotiation data to our free database to help us expand with this section.
How Much Otolaryngologists Make by Hours Worked
Medicine can often be an “eat what you kill” industry, so we wanted to look at how average salaries varied by reported hours worked. Some of our members reported working 61+ hours a week, but the vast majority fell into the averages below.
16-35 hours a week average - $461,000 a year
36-40 hours a week average - $579,000 a year
41-45 hours a week average - $508,000 a year
46-50 hours a week average - $579,000 a year
51-60 hours a week average - $648,000 a year
While we see a general trend that otolaryngologists who work the most earn the most and those that work the least make the least, it isn’t a straight linear relationship. Our ENTs who averaged 41-45 hours a work actually reported lower earnings than those working 36-40 hours (who made the same as the ENTs working 46-50 hours a week).
This suggests that other factors, such as practice environment, are also important factors that can heavily influence average salaries overall.
How Much Otolaryngologists Work
As well as looking at how much otolaryngologists make by hours worked, we looked at how much they worked on average.
The majority of otolaryngologists work 36-50 hours a week on average.
Along with the average hours worked a week, doctors contributing to our database can also indicate how much time they spend charting. Almost 25% of otolaryngologists reported spending an additional 5 or more hours a week charting at home and several reported spending 10+ hours weekly.
If you find yourself spending a lot of time at home charting, an AI scribe may be able to 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 Otolaryngologist 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 average pay for ear, nose, and throat physicians over time. 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: $516,000
2020-2021: $476,000
2022-2023: $551,000
2024: $579,000
As with many specialties that include procedures, we saw a drop in compensation during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021 when many elective procedures were paused.
Overall, however, we see a general trend of salaries increasing over the years, with 2022-2023 16% greater than 2020-2021 and 7% higher than 2018-2019 average salaries. 2024 shows a 5% increase, and we hope to see this increase in salaries continue with more salary transparency for physicians.
Additional Insights into ENT Compensation Packages
In addition to salary information, physicians contributing to our databases include other compensation data as well. We plan to dive further into complete compensation packages later, but for now, we have included some key insights otolaryngologists might find interesting.
Sign-On and Relocation Bonuses ENT Doctors Receive
43% of our otolaryngologists reported receiving a sign-on bonus, with the average amount of $28,000. Reported signing bonuses ranged from $10,000 - $80,000.
Learn more about signing bonuses for physicians.
31% reported receiving a relocation bonus. The average amount was around $13,000. Moving bonuses ranged from $5,000 - $30,000.
Average Vacation Days ENT Doctors Receive
The average number of vacation days annually was 24 days with a median of 21 days. Some doctors commented that their vacation is an overall pool of paid time off, including their sick days and CME, while others had separate buckets.
In addition, some ENTs reported unlimited time off that wasn’t monitored, but commented that if they didn’t work, they didn’t get paid as they were on a strictly RVU based compensation plan.
Learn more about RVU based physician contracts.
CME Stipends for ENT Doctors
60% of our full-time otolaryngology doctors reported receiving some sort of CME stipend, with the average annual stipend being around $4,400.
Average Student Loan Debt for Otolaryngology
While student loans are not a part of compensation, student loan debt forgiveness can be a benefit with many positions. Of our physicians who reported their student loan debt at graduation, the average debt was $245,000. The higher your federal loan debt burden, the more beneficial repayment programs and loan forgiveness programs can be.
Learn more about doctor student loans. If you’ve been considering refinancing to help with the debt burden, you can also explore our student loan refinancing options.
Increasing Your ENT Salary
If the information above has you questioning your current salary, there are a few different ways to increase your income as an ENT. 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 as an otolaryngologist but are already at or above your market’s rate, you have options in this situation as well. Opportunities to consider include:
Explore side gigs for ENTs for more ideas. You can also check out all our popular medical and non-medical side gigs for doctors.
Additional Salary and Career Resources for Otolaryngologists
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:
Also check out our medical and non-medical side gigs for physicians.