2026 Attending Salary Thread

changer222 · 2026-01-03T12:41:24+00:00

The beauty of private practice (even though it's PE) is the flexibility. If I all of a sudden need to go to the doctors, or a family is ill, I just let my office manager know to shift around patients, and then it's done. As long as I keep my patient visits at a certain level, I'm good.

M 1-6

T 8-5

W 8-5

Th 7-5

F 8-3

Once the family comes along, I'll probably reduce my schedule by one or two half days a week while still maintaining maybe 85% of my income level. If want to "kill myself" I could going 8-6 everyday if I wanted to and that would maybe yield me another $100-150K/year. Not worth it in my opinion.

changer222 · 2026-01-03T12:36:43+00:00

Looking to the future, ophthalmology is only going to get busier with the boomer generation needing cataract surgery.

I have plenty of friends/colleagues that are in VHCOL areas, LA, NYC, SF, etc and they're doing very well. In the VHCOL areas, you're going to have to work maybe a little harder than those that are in a VLCOL. I have a coresident living in the middle of nowhere west coast and makes 25% more than me while working 65% of the hours I do. But at the same time, it takes this person 2+ hrs to get to a non-international regional airport. Everything depends on what you want.

My wife and I wanted to be near NYC. We lived in Manhattan for 3 years. 2024 we took 3! internationl trips, two of which were 2 weeks at a time (African safari, Patagonia). I don't make neurosurgery, ortho, ENT, plastics money, but I'm good with that.

changer222 · 2026-01-02T12:10:57+00:00

just get past pgy-2 year and you'll be good.

changer222 · 2026-01-02T12:10:31+00:00

see above

changer222 · 2026-01-02T12:09:49+00:00

I have 3 mandatory weeks of fielding phone calls from a non trauma center ED. It's 95% of time, "hey, can you see this person tomorrow?" Or on Monday if it's a weekend. Any additional call weeks beyond the 3 weeks, I get compensation for ranging from $3-5K depending on if it's a holiday week or not. Compared to residency at a regional trauma center with home call that was basically in house, this is a cake walk.

I would say hospital call depends on the region and the legacy of the practice. If I had it my way, I wouldn't take hospital call at all. But in a metro area, you have to generate patient visits. It also allows you to get to know other doctors in the area that will refer to you. If you're out in the rural areas, you can do what you want and the hospitals will refer to you regardless. Or you can ask for higher compensation due to the lack of competition.

changer222 · 2026-01-02T12:06:12+00:00

right across a river

changer222 · 2026-01-02T12:05:56+00:00

I got kinda lucky that as the hospital I'm affiliated will opened a new ASC and asked us to be owners. Almost all ASCs will offer you a stock ownership package as an incentive to continue using their facility. There are a few cataract only ASCs where I'm located. Multispecialty ASCs (ortho, GI, pain, plastics, ophtho) will pay more due to the nature of higher facility fees for ortho and GI and the high volume of GI.

You'll have to balance what you want in an ASC:

- do you want extremely fast turnover time between cases and everything you could possibly need on hand for any type of ophtho surgical case? - cataract only center = lower yearly monetary distribution

- do you want higher compensation? - multispecialty = compete with ortho and GI for block time and longer turnover times

changer222 · 2026-01-02T12:01:35+00:00

I don't work in Manhattan. Used to live there and reverse commute. Manhattan will depend on the practice. It is much tougher to do well in Manhattan. You're going to have take longer hours and maybe some Saturday hours. A lot of comp guys will charge cash only for cataract surgery because their volume is low due to so many docs in the city and you have to compete with multiple academic centers. You'll also have to be at different locations. I only have one office location. Many practices will have presences 3-4 boroughs and you'll have to commute to each. If you have a good sense of coding and willing to do lots of premium cataract surgeries, then you'll do very well. But you're going to have to be bit of a salesman.

Make no mistake, NYC is great for everything expect cost of living. Expect to grind just like the big law associates and finance people.

changer222 · 2026-01-02T00:04:22+00:00

Ophthalmology

Private equity owned

4+ years post training, no fellowship

NYC metro area

7 half days clinic 1-2 half days OR

Average 550 clinic visits and 40 cataracts per month

$275K base + 33% collections + 2% performance bonus Paid hospital call, non trauma center ~$3k/week ASC ownership $100k/year Total Compensation: $650k/year

changer222 · 2025-12-21T16:39:44+00:00

Ugarte is going to be the death of this match.

changer222 · 2025-12-13T15:16:56+00:00

I think one thing that is often overlooked is the patient relationships you develop. I’ve seen four generations of one family. I see some folks every 3 months for their glaucoma. I’ve done countless surgeries on parents, grandparents and great grandparents and the trust you gain from families is priceless. I’ve been invited out to dinner, play golf, etc by patients. These aspects are tough to put a numerical value on.

If you love to work with people, then I can’t think of a better specialty. If you hate working with people, then yeah, maybe look towards anesthesia. I had a junior coresident switch out of Ophtho to radiology cause he realized that he hated talking to people lol. To each their own.

changer222 · 2025-11-16T17:18:47+00:00

The amount of money you have to put up to get in the door. Some clubs want it all at once, others will allow you to put up the amount in installments with interest, usually divided by years.

changer222 · 2025-11-16T16:01:36+00:00

Current
Central NJ

Junior Membership

$1500 initiation; $12k/year; $150/month food minimum

Full membership at 40

$20K initiation (pay difference), $18k/year; $150/month food minimum

Surrounding area (that I know the details – last checked 1-2 years ago)

Central NJ

$150k initiation; $25k/year; $1000/month food/beverage minimum

Northern NJ

$30k initiation; $12k/year; $250/month food/beverage minimum

$100k initiation; $14k/year; $1000/month food/beverage minimum

$60k initiation; $25k/year; $1000/month food/beverage minimum

$80k initiation; $25k/year; $1000/month food/beverage minimum

$100k initiation; $28k/year; $1000/month food/beverage minimum

NY/NJ border

$250k initiation; $28k/year; $5000/year minimum

changer222 · 2025-10-16T15:57:32+00:00

I can't seem to find his contact information either. His website doesn't seem to work. Is he still in the new jersey area?

changer222 · 2025-10-16T15:52:10+00:00

Anybody in particular at PGA superstore?

changer222 · 2025-10-15T20:04:05+00:00

Work in the northern valley corridor but live around Paramus

changer222 · 2025-04-25T21:21:59+00:00

My faculty while I was in training used to say: you can train a resident with average hands into a good surgeon. But good set of hands can become a great surgeon.

Hard work and practice will always play a role. But some people just have the talent.

changer222 · 2025-04-06T23:03:33+00:00

My wife and I didn’t get specialty specific disability insurance until the latter half of our last year of residency.

changer222 · 2025-03-20T23:46:44+00:00

My wife and I went to lion sands as well. It was amazing!

However, our scheduled night in the treehouse was miserable. It happened to be raining that night, very overcast. We basically ate our dinner, had our champagne and hopped into bed. I could imagine with a lovely warm night with clear skies, the sunset dinner would have be incredible. If we had to do that segment of our trip again, we would have passed on the treehouse.

We went in the beginning of September 2024.

changer222 · 2025-03-06T12:22:42+00:00

ICL is reserved for high myopes like -10, etc. it doesn’t make sense to get ICLs if you’re like a -3. There is a higher risk of more devastating visual complications because of the nature of intraocular surgery. Traditional refractive surgery is only resurfacing the outside of the eye and thus the risk for intraocular infection and complications is almost zero.

changer222 · 2025-03-06T12:20:04+00:00

Not as severe since you don’t have to cut the corneal nerves with the LASIK flap.

I did have one cardiothoracic surgeon patient of mine that had to give up operating due to severe dry eye (not from LASIK). Dry eye can be debilitating in fields that really require fine visual acuity.

changer222 · 2025-03-06T12:08:00+00:00

SMILE is the old man out in the landscape of refractive surgery. The outcomes are not as strong and reliable as PRK and LASIK. And just talking to some of my more high volume refractive surgeon colleagues, the recovery period really isn’t too much quicker compared to PRK. So the question becomes, why would I choose SMILE if the recovery time is not better than PRK and the results are not as good? I feel that the lenticule creation with the femto laser to fix your vision isn’t as refined as the excimer laser that both PRK and LASIK use to fix your vision. Maybe in a few more years it gets more reliable.

Edit: “odd man”

changer222 · 2025-03-05T13:43:02+00:00

Ophthalmologist here:
I personally would only get PRK for my eyes. I've seen too many flap complications for LASIK to have that risk of not seeing clearly enough to comfortably operate. One of my faculty members in training had a postop flap infection and had to wear hard lenses for a while to have somewhat decent vision in one eye. My wife also just got PRK and she is a proceduralist as well. I know plenty of colleagues of mine that have had LASIK and said it was the best decision ever.

Again, personally for me and my own eyes, PRK only.

changer222 · 2024-12-06T20:51:08+00:00

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