three stacks of coins with plants growing from them
in-pacents PA Salary

2017 PA Salaries Increased in Report from NCCPA

2017 NCCPA Salary Report Review

The 2017 NCCPA Statistical Profile of Certified Physician Assistants shows an increase in PA salaries from $104,000 in 2016 to $107,718 in 2017 for the average salary of certified PAs. This would be an increase of 3.5% from the prior year and 12.7% over the last five years.

NCCPA Report Overview

According to the recent report by the NCCPA those working in pathology and dermatology were the highest paid, with emergency medicine not far behind. The lowest paid on the list was adolescent medicine.

The NCCPA is the certifying organization for PAs in the United States, and this is the fifth year that they have published this report. The data is collected from online profiles of certified PAs that have been updated between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2017. As of the date the data was collected there were 123,089 certified PAs and 112,485 who had updated a portion of their profile within the allotted time frame, yielding a response rate of 91.4%.

The salary information is only a small portion of the data in the report. The report also looks at information such as, distribution of certified PAs in the U.S., gender and age of PAs, educational profile, practice areas of PAs, etc.

Interestingly, the report shows that the PA profession continues to grow with an increase of almost 54% since 2010. Also, the use of PAs is growing with an increase of over 70% in the number of certified PAs working in surgical sub-specialties since 2013.

[jetpack_subscription_form title=”Get the latest news on PA salaries” subscribe_text=”Enter your email address to receive future posts by email for FREE” subscribe_button=”Sign Me Up”]

NCCPA Report vs AAPA Survey

In comparison to the most recent AAPA salary report, the average salary of PAs is higher; with the AAPA report showing average salaries of $102,000 in 2016. However, the percentage of increase according to the AAPA report is less, with the AAPA report showing an increase of about 5% from the prior year.

Compared to the AAPA report this report shows a much high rate of response. The most recent AAPA report only had a response rate of about 6% of certified PAs, which makes it a weak tool for negotiation.

The downside to the NCCPA report is the lack of salary data in the report; for example, it does not break down the salary into base salary and bonus. If you’re looking for in depth information on the salaries of PAs the AAPA report is still the way to go. Another problem with this report is the data is collected over two years, which means the data is collected for a longer time period and does not account for salary changes in the most recent year.

Although there are downsides to both the reports, the good thing is that the numbers are very close and the difference can be accounted for by the different methods of collecting the data. When looking at salary data, or if you’re going to use any data for negotiations it is important to corroborate with multiple reports

PA Salary Raise

Last year, I personally saw an increase in my salary by 3% which is keeping up with the NCCPA report; but this means PA salaries are barely keeping up with inflation. If inflation is 3% then over the past 5 years PA salaries have seen less of an increase than this. Although PA salaries have been on the rise, the cost of living is slowly out-pacing PA salaries.

What do you think of the most recent report from the NCCPA? How does your salary compare? Don’t forget to sign up to receive future posts by email, please comment below the original post and share with your friends!