The Influence of Race and Gender on Family Physicians’ Annual Incomes

William B. Weeks; Amy Wallace

doi:10.3122/jabfm.19.6.548

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Figure 1.
Sequential process of selecting survey respondents to include in the final analysis.
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Figure 2.
Adjusted annual incomes for black male, white female, and black female family physicians as a proportion of that for white male family physicians, with 95% CI.

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Table 1.

Comparison of inflation adjusted income, work effort, provider and practice characteristics of family physicians, by race and gender (data obtained from the American Medical Association for years 1992–2001).

	Family physicians
	Male		Female
	White	Black	White	Black
Number of family physicians in the analysis	786	20	159	12
Inflation adjusted annual income (mean, in 2004 dollars)^*	$169,564	$189,123	$135,531	$107,733
Physician work effort
Total annual visits	6,396	6,555	4,790	3,892
Total annual hours worked	2,707	2,999	2,390	2,246
Provider characteristics
Years in medical practice (mean)	17.8	16.9	11.9	10.9
Less than 10 years (%)	14.6	15.8	31.5	23.1
10–19 years (%)	47.9	59.5	59.5	76.9
20–29 years (%)	23.0	10.5	7.4	0.0
30 years or longer (%)	14.5	15.8	1.3	0.0
Ownership interest, and board certification
Physician is an employee (%)	42.2	47.4	61.7	69.2
Physician is board certified (%)	85.7	90.0	85.8	83.3
Practice characteristics
Census region of practice
Northeast census region (%)	14.3	5.3	13.5	0.0
North Central census region (%)	29.5	15.8	29.1	0.0
Southern census region (%)	34.7	73.6	28.9	84.6
Western census region (%)	21.5	5.3	28.2	15.4
Practice setting
Less than 50,000 population (%)	24.7	10.5	22.0	0.0
Population between 50,000 and 500,000 (%)	33.9	21.0	26.1	23.1
Population greater than 500,000 (%)	41.4	68.4	51.9	76.9
Service population
Proportion of patients on Medicaid (%)	12.9	14.8	15.8	26.7
Proportion providing Medicare services (%)	99.0	100	95.3	100

* We used the consumer price index³⁵ to inflation-adjust reported net annual income to constant 2004 dollars. For instance, to inflate income reported for 1995 to 2004 dollars, we multiplied the reported income in 1995 by the consumer price index in 2004 (188.9) and then divided that figure by the consumer price index in 1995 (152.4).

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Table 2.

Results of the Regression Analysis.

	Coefficient	95% CI
Physician work effort
Total annual visits	$12.06	$10.17–$13.96
Total annual hours worked	$1.13	($4.83)–$7.08
Provider characteristics
Years in medical practice (10 to 15 years is referent)
Less than 5 years	($38,339)	($64,237)–($12,440)
5 to 9 years	($3,887)	($16,092)–$8,318
10 to 19 years	$6,672	($7,103)–$20,446
20 to 24 years	($520)	($12,643)–$11,604
25 to 29 years	$1,038	($18,229)–$20,305
30 to 34 years	($15,411)	($31,688)–$865
35 to 39 years	($34,419)	($63,795)–($5,042)
40 years or more	($19,353)	($43,563)–$4,858
Ownership interest, and board certification
Physician is an employee	($5,848)	($14,491)–$2,795
Physician is board certified	$15,980	$4,173–$27,788
Practice characteristics
Northeast census region	($17,043)	($30,077)–($4,009)
North Central census region	($14,576)	($24,816)–($4,336)
Western census region	($9,856)	($20,933)–$1,221
Less than 50,000 population	($5,643)	($16,638)–$5,352
Population between 50,000 and 500,000	($13,756)	($23,086)–($4,426)
Service population
1% increase in patient population on Medicaid	($187)	($479)–$105
Proportion providing Medicare services	$5,013	($27,725)–$37,752
Race/gendercharacteristics (white male is referent)
Black male	$9,309	($18,410)–$37,028
White female	($14,579)	($25,969)–($3,189)
Black female	($36,963)	($71,450)–($2,476)

* Our regression model used consumer price index adjusted annual income (2004 dollars) as the dependent variable. Coefficients are denominated in 2004 dollars. Parentheses indicate negative values. Adjusted R square for the model = 0.28.