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 to ask for it. Having access to salary data empowers doctors to know whether they are being compensated appropriately. Anesthesiologists, physiatrists, and others practicing pain management need salary transparency about what the average pain management physician 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.
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 Pain Management Aggregate Stats Were Determined
The data for pain management doctors below was compiled using 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, at the time of this article, we only had 79 contributions available. Smaller datasets may be less representative of the overall landscape of the specialty. As such, we remind you to access the full free doctor salary and negotiation database to compare your situation to relevant data.
Unless otherwise noted, the stats below are for full-time attending pain management physicians, determined based on a full-time equivalency of an average 36+ hours worked a week. We excluded data contributed by residents and fellows.
There are two main subsets within our pain management data: those doing pain management as a subspecialty of anesthesiology and other non- anesthesiologist pain management physicians, typically physiatrists practicing as a subspecialty of PM&R medicine. We explore the data for both, and break it out by subspecialty below.
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 a Pain Management Physician Make in 2024?
The average annual salary across all of our contributing pain management physicians for 2024 was $455,000, including doctors practicing part time and full time.
A single average annual salary can be misleading, as several factors affect salary. We break this number down further to help you find more relevant comparison points.
Average Full-Time Pain Management Physician Salary for 2024
The average salary for a full-time pain management physician for 2024 was $457,000. To give you an idea on the range of salaries around this average, a few extra stats:
The highest reported salary was $1,200,000 a year.
The lowest reported salary was $180,000 a year.
The median salary was $414,000.
The lowest reported salary, as we have often seen throughout our how much doctors make by specialty series, was by a physician serving as active duty military. As we explore below, the practice environment can play a role in how much a physician makes on average.
Three of our top four highest reported salaries came from doctors who were owners or partners in their practice. We also assess below how employment type influences physician salaries.
Average Part-Time Pain Management Doctor Salary for 2024
To assess a part-time average, we looked at attending physicians who reported working 16-35 hours a week. Below, we break down average salaries by hours worked, but at this time, we don’t have enough to break down the part-time data further. Please consider contributing your physician salary and compensation data if you haven’t already to explore part-time pain management salaries deeper.
The average part-time pain management doctor salary for 2024 was $430,000.
How Much Pain Management Physicians Make by Specialization
Since specialization can pay heavily into salary, we looked at the average salary breakdown by specialization. Our pain management physicians indicated this specialty either as anesthesiologists or as non-anesthesia pain management. Most of our non-anesthesia pain management data points came from PM&R physicians.
Some of our members added further specialization in fields such as interventional pain, primary emergency medicine, and interventional spine and sports medicine. We don’t at this time, however, have enough data points to aggregate stats for these areas. Explore our full free physician salary and compensation database for more detailed information on these data points, and please take a moment to contribute your anonymous physician salary and compensation data if you haven’t already this year so we can expand this section in the future.
Anesthesiology pain management: $488,000 a year
Non-anesthesiology pain management: $407,000 a year
With the current dataset we have, our anesthesiology pain management physicians make an average 20% more than their non-anesthesiology colleagues, with the highest six salaries all reported from the anesthesiology group.
Learn more about:
Pain Management Physician Salary by Gender
We also looked at what our female doctors averaged in earnings compared to their male counterparts.
Female pain management physicians reported an average salary of $391,000. Male pain management doctors reported 24% higher earnings with an average salary of $486,000.
This is a slightly larger gender gap than what we’ve generally seen in our how much doctors make by specialty series, so we dug a little deeper into the data to see if we saw any trends. We noted that while 15% of male pain management physicians reported working 51+ hours a week on average, only 5% of female doctors did. Below, we evaluate how much pain management physicians make by hours worked to assess what role that plays on salaries, as there is often a trade off between time and money in medicine.
We also noted that 25% of our female correspondents reported working for government facilities, while only 10% of male correspondents worked for government facilities or in the military. Below, we assess how the practice environment affects salaries.
How Much Pain Management Doctors Make by Practice Environment
We next broke down the data by where our members reported working to assess the average pay differences by practice environment.
Government facilities and military: $301,000
Group private practices (private equity and non-private equity backed): $466,000
Hospitals (academic and non-academic): $501,000
Overall, we see as noted above that pain management doctors working in government facilities such as for the VA and city hospitals, as well as active duty military, averaged the lowest salary. It’s important to know, however, that these position often either have tuition programs to help obtain a medical degree or 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.
While we usually see physicians working for private practices with the highest average salaries, with the current dataset we have, we noted that hospital employees earned an average 8% more, with a notable exception. We don’t have enough data points to draw a conclusive average for solo private practice owners, but we did note from the data we have that their reported salaries ranged closer to the average for hospital employees.
We typically like to break these categories down even further, depending on the amount of data available. A few other insights we noted from the current dataset:
Pain management doctors working at academic hospitals tended to report salaries before the average for the specialty, while the average for the larger non-academic group averaged $533,000, below the overall average.
We also noted that the non-academic hospital set had the highest percentage of physicians with the most experience (11+ years), which may skew the data.
Pain management physicians working within hospital systems, on average, appear to work more hours than colleagues working for group private practices, with 27% of hospital employees working 46+ hours a week on average versus 15% of physicians working for group private practices.
We also noted when looking at additional career and contract insights for pain management doctors below that ancillary practice income streams such as ambulatory surgery centers can be a common interest for pain management doctors, which can also help increase overall earnings.
Pain Management Physician Salary by Type of Employment
15% of our pain management doctors reported being an owner or partner within a private practice. These doctors reported an average salary of $571,000 while W2 employed reported an average 31% less of $435,000.
From all the different factors influencing salary we’ve evaluated so far, this one has the largest impact. If you are looking to grow your career and earnings potential in pain management medicine, a partnership track or owning your own practice can be a great way to achieve this goal.
We are firm believers in physicians making the life in medicine that fits their life and goals. If private practice ownership interests you, explore related PSG resources:
Pain Management Physician Salary by Location
Our pain management doctors are spread around the country, so we don’t have average salaries (yet) by state, as we tend to want more data points in each location before commenting on trends. We hope to update this section soon.
Contribute your physician salary and compensation data today to see this section added in the future.
How Much Pain Management Doctors Make by Hours Worked
Medicine can often be an “eat what you kill” industry, so we wanted to look at how average salaries varied in 2024 by reported hours worked by our pain management doctors.
16-35 hours a week - $430,000
36-40 hours a week - $478,000
41-45 hours a week - $425,000
46+ hours a week - $442,000
While we usually see a trend of increasing salaries with the amount of hours worked, the salaries are scattered with our smaller dataset for pain management. We noted trends above about how hospital employees tended to work more than physicians in private practice, which could contribute to higher salaries. Looking at our averages here, we can clearly say this isn’t the only driving factor. We noted, for example, that some of our highest weekly hours reported were for active duty military and physicians working at government facilities, who reported the lowest average salaries.
Again, we reiterate the importance of comparing apples to apples for your current situation to help determine your worth during your physician employment contract negotiations, as not all factors are weighted equally in every situation. A local contract review attorney can help you assess market trends to help you better negotiate an employment contract.
How Much Pain Management Doctors Work
The majority of pain management doctors work an average 36-45 hours a week.
We often look at how much physicians report charting from home as well, as it can significantly add to the average hours worked a week. For pain management physicians, however, that isn’t the case. Few report spending 5+ hours a week charting at home, which suggests that this specialty may have one of the better work-life balance options.
Changes in Pain Management 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 average pay for pain management over time. To compare relative data, we continued to look only at pain management doctors out of residency/fellowship who worked on average 36+ hours a week. For 2023, we combined the data from the old database and the new database, cutting off entries at the transition point to help omit any overlapping or duplicate information.
2018-2019: $370,000
2020-2021: $395,000 (7% increase)
2022-2023: $431,000 (9% increase)
2024: $457,000 (6% increase)
While in several specialties we’ve seen a dip in salaries in the 2020-2021 range during the COVID-19 pandemic, we see a steady increase in salaries for pain management over the course of our database. We look forward to seeing this trend continue with increased salary transparency.
Additional Insights into Pain Management Physician Compensation Packages
When assessing the different additional benefits as part of the overall compensation package, we noted that, on average, a smaller percentage of doctors reported receiving these benefits than we’ve typically seen among other specialties in our how much do doctors make series. This isn’t to say necessarily, however, that this is a completely accurate comparison across specialties, as these data points are optional when members contribute their anonymous data. It’s simply a reminder to consider these additional compensation items and advocate for them during your physician contract negotiations.
Sign-On and Relocation Bonuses Pain Management Physicians Receive
36% of our pain management doctors reported receiving a sign-on bonus, with an average amount of $28,000. Signing bonuses varied anywhere from $5,000 all the way up to $75,000.
We’re starting to see a trend of rising signing bonuses across specialties. We don’t have enough data points to draw a conclusive analysis within the pain management specialty, and the data we currently have shows roughly the same ranges and averages for 2023 versus 2024, but we look forward to exploring this in more detail as we receive additional contributions.
Learn more about signing bonuses for physicians.
22% of our pain management physicians reported receiving a moving bonus, with an average of $9,000. Relocation bonuses ranged from $5,000 to $20,000.
Average Vacation Days Pain Management Doctors Receive
The average and median number of annual vacation days pain management doctors received was 23 days. Reported vacation time varied anywhere from two to eight weeks.
Some doctors noted their vacation days were unpaid, which didn’t add any additional monetary value to their overall compensation package. Of this set, some mentioned they had “unlimited” time off, but they only got paid for the hours they worked.
Others noted they had a common pool of PTO that included vacation along with sick time, holidays, etc.
CME Stipends for Pain Management Physicians
68% of our pain management physicians reported receiving some sort of CME stipend. Stipends ranged from $1,000 - $7,500 annually, with an average of $3,400.
Average Student Loan Debt for Pain Management Medicine
While student loans are not a part of compensation, student loan debt forgiveness can be a benefit with many positions. Of our pain management doctors who reported their student loan debt at graduation, the average debt was $269,000. 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.
Extra Insights from Pain Management Physicians
As part of our salary and compensation data contributions, members of our physician online community can provide additional comments. As we compiled the data, we looked for additional insights provided by other pain management doctors that could be valuable for job selection and contract negotiations. A few that might be of use:
Increasing Your Pain Management Physician Salary
If the information above has you questioning your current salary, there are a few different ways to increase your income in pain management. But a reminder: remember to look at the overall picture. 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 a pain management doctor but are already at or above your market’s rate, you have options in this situation as well. Opportunities to consider include:
Consulting, including consulting for pharmaceutical companies and being a startup advisor
Pain clinic
Explore more popular medical and non-medical side gigs for doctors for ways to increase your income.
Additional Salary and Career Resources for Pain Management Doctors
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 most popular medical and non-medical side gigs for doctors.