The goal of this project was to generate new and improved estimates of the earnings of U.S. physicians. The project accomplished this goal by linking a comprehensive administrative registry of US physicians to detailed tax, income, and demographic data held by the US Census Bureau. Specifically, the project acquired a restricted version of the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) health care provider registry maintained by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The project then linked this data on physicians to: individual federal income tax return data (Forms W-2, 1040, and 1099s); Social Security Administration Numident records; and American Community Survey (ACS) responses.

Existing evidence on physician earnings has relied on survey data and faced measurement challenges, such as top-coding and income underreporting. The linked survey and administrative data produced by this project overcomes many of these issues to enable a better understanding of earnings in this occupation. We also compare the tax return-based estimates to those from the survey data and describe general patterns in physician earnings by detailed specialty, geography, age, and year.

Currently, estimates are available for all physicians in the 125 largest commuting zones, and by specialty within these commuting zones as sample sizes permit. Files are provided in Stata and CSV formats. The two versions are identical in content and layout. We are planning additional data products related to the characteristics of the healthcare workforce based on these linked data (see, for instance, our physician-business linkage project).