PA Salary Report from Melnic
According to the 2016 Melnic salary report, base salaries for new graduate PAs averaged $100,000 and PAs with over ten years of experience averaged $145,000. Melnic, a nationwide search firm that works with nurse practitioners, physician assistants and clinical nurse specialists for job placements has been doing an annual salary survey the past few years.
The goal of the salary guide is to help providers negotiate salary, compare benefit and assess future earning potential. The guide gives an overview of national and regional salary averages and data is collected throughout the calendar year. It is a self-reported survey of over 675 advanced practice nurses and PAs.
The report notes that total compensation is often more than just salary and can be worth up to an additional 22-30% of base salary. Over 90% of respondents received paid vacation and just over 60% received bonuses.
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An interesting perspective of this salary survey compared to others I’ve seen is that this one looks at PA salaries compared to NP salaries, and notes that PAs often out earn NP colleagues. It goes on to further explain contributing factors for this variance, such as work conditions – are more NPs working in primary care and PAs working in surgical specialties, etc.
The report also notes the importance of negotiating and how “research has shown that men and women tend to negotiate salaries differently”; these differences in negotiation can contribute to the difference in gender wages previously reported by the AAPA.
As with the AAPA salary survey this report shows that providers out west tend to earn more. Mostly contributing to this is the high cost of living in California and higher wages there.
This report also shows that PA salaries have been increasing. In 2015 the average reported salary was $110,270, this increased to $122,714 in 2016.
In Summary
Overall, this salary report is interesting in that it compares salaries for NPs and PAs. If you thought the AAPA salary survey was a small sample size this one was even less, with only about 700 respondents, many of whom were not PAs. In comparison to other salary surveys for PAs this report showed a higher salary.
Besides the small sample size another drawback to his report is that it only looks at base salary. A breakdown of base salary and bonus would be helpful.
The survey is conducted from January to December, so the 2017 results should be in, and coming out soon. The previous year’s results are free to anyone who completes the current year’s survey, so if you’re interested in looking at the full results you can visit the website.
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