Cost of Living and How It Affects Physician Compensation

Physicians overall earn great 6 figure salaries. However, many physicians tend to over emphasize salary and forget to factor in cost of living expenses when evaluating a job offer.

It’s important for physicians and everyone working or considering a job to understand the correlation between salary and cost of living – as that determines how much value you actually get from your salary.

According to best places, cost of living is the amount of money you need to maintain a certain lifestyle in a given city factoring in specific living expenses.

This can affect physician compensation if not properly calculated. So, if you’re a high-earning physician living in one of the most expensive cities in the U.S., your money might not stretch very far.

When thinking about physician jobs and offers that you get from potential healthcare employers, here are 2 things to keep top of mind:

1. Location: Since the price of goods and services vary from one location to another, it’s important to identify what salary range you need to maintain a certain lifestyle. If you’re a physician looking for the best places to work with reasonable pay and low cost of living expenses, one thing you should consider is looking at the top U.S. cities with the lowest cost of living prior to starting your physician job search.
2. Salary and Expenses: When it comes to cost of living, there are certain expenses that need to be factored in. Those expenses include housing prices (homeowner and renter), housing affordability, utilities, entertainment costs, transportation, food prices, taxes, healthcare, and more. When considering an offer, make sure to factor in these expenses to see how far your salary will go in that particular city. Here is a great interactive tool from How Much that checks which cities and neighborhoods are a best fit with your income and family needs.

For advice on cost of living and physician compensation, connect with one of our physician recruiters. In the meantime, enjoy our FREE guide on physician jobs.