Pulmonary / Critical Care Salary
Pulmonary and critical care blends a procedural clinic with intensive care coverage, and the ICU schedule is the financial center of gravity. Unit shifts and call define both income and lifestyle.
Median total cash compensation for a mid-career attending. Source: Medscape 2024 (publicly cited). Treat figures as medians, not targets. Real compensation varies widely by geography, employment model, and experience.
Live anonymous cohort, Pulmonary / Critical Care
We display a live Pulmonary / Critical Care cohort once at least 10 attendings have submitted in the last 24 months. Until then, the published benchmark and regional table below are your reference. Be one of the first to seed it.
Submit your comp anonymouslyPulmonary / Critical Care pay by region
Directional regional medians, anchored to the Medscape 2024 national figure and US Census region adjustments. The South and Midwest pay more in absolute dollars because physician supply is lower and demand is higher; the Northeast runs lower with a higher cost of living.
| Region | Median total comp | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| National median | $405,000 | Doximity 2024 / Medscape 2024 nationwide median. |
| South | $445,500 | Highest absolute compensation. Houston, Jacksonville, Charlotte, Atlanta lead. |
| Midwest | $437,400 | Indianapolis and St. Louis often top Doximity median tables. |
| West | $413,100 | Wide spread. California pays well but is offset by cost of living. |
| Northeast | $392,850 | Lower in absolute terms (high supply of physicians) and higher cost of living. |
Regional figures are modeled adjustments to the national median, not separately surveyed values. Use them for direction, not as an offer benchmark.
What drives Pulmonary / Critical Care compensation
- ICU coverage volume and intensivist shift structure, the dominant income component for most.
- Procedure mix in clinic, including bronchoscopy and pleural procedures, which lifts the wRVU profile.
- Call burden, which is heavy in this specialty and carries a real premium.
- Employed versus group critical care staffing models, which set the ceiling.
Model your own number, not the median
Pulmonary / Critical Care reports a median of about 7,500 wRVUs a year. Your take-home is that volume times your contract rate, above your threshold. Plug your real visit mix into the calculator and see the bonus your specific offer produces, then negotiate against it.
Negotiation levers at offer time
- •Convert ICU coverage to dollars per shift so critical care and clinic time can be compared directly.
- •Price the call schedule explicitly given how heavy it is in this specialty.
- •Confirm whether clinic procedures credit fully to your production alongside unit work.
Pulmonary / Critical Care at a glance
Demanding call. Strong job security post-COVID. Mostly employed. Typical setting: icu + outpatient pulm clinic.
Frequently asked questions
What drives pulmonary and critical care pay?
ICU coverage. Intensivist shift volume and structure dominate income for most pulmonary and critical care physicians, with clinic procedures adding to the wRVU profile.
Is the call burden reflected in compensation?
It should be. Call is heavy in this specialty, and the schedule is one of the clearest income-for-lifestyle trades to negotiate explicitly.
How should I compare an ICU-heavy offer to a clinic-heavy one?
Convert both to dollars per shift and dollars per wRVU. Mixing annualized base with shift work obscures which offer actually pays more for your intended schedule.
Filter every specialty by region with the live cohort tool.
Anonymous, 90 seconds. NPI verification weights your data 3x.
The codes that actually drive this specialty's wRVUs.
30-year cumulative earnings with regional cost adjustment.
Educational reference, not financial, billing, or legal advice. Published medians are publicly cited from Medscape 2024. The live cohort is self-reported and anonymized; individual rows are never exposed and a cohort is shown only at a minimum size. Verify any number against your own contract and market before acting on it.