Good news and bad news from MedAxiom’s latest cardiology compensation survey. The good news? Cardiologist median compensation reached new record highs last year. The bad news? Patient access deteriorated while the number of patients physicians had to manage swelled.
- The 2025 MedAxiom Cardiovascular Provider Compensation and Production Survey represents the cardiovascular industry’s most comprehensive compensation dataset.
- It can also help signal fundamental shifts in how cardiovascular care is valued and delivered.
The 2025 survey findings aggregated data across cardiology, cardiac surgery, and vascular surgery specialties, examining compensation trends, workforce deployment patterns, and productivity metrics and found that…
- Full-time cardiologist median compensation reached $695k despite slight wRVU production declines.
- When filtering by employment type, integrated practice cardiologists surpassed $700k compared to private practice physicians at $588k — the largest gap in over five years.
- Cardiac surgeons saw only modest compensation increases while vascular surgeons maintained near-peak compensation despite both showing productivity drops.
Even with those pay raises, patient access hasn’t improved, rather going in the other direction…
- Patient access showed significant strain with panel sizes reaching nearly 2,000 per physician FTE.
- Meanwhile, new patient office visits declined for the first time in years to just 15.4% of total visits.
- Catheterization and PCI volumes per 1,000 active cardiology patients continued downward trends, reflecting shifts toward more advanced imaging guidance.
Given mounting access challenges despite workforce expansion, the survey once again confirmed that advanced practice providers are central to maintaining care capacity.
- Cardiology programs increased APP-to-physician ratios to 0.75, while cardiac and vascular surgery programs saw declining APP support per surgeon.
- Cardiology APPs demonstrated 8% productivity growth, with private practice APPs significantly outperforming integrated peers.
- The declining physician FTEs per 1,000 active patients alongside rising APP utilization represents a fundamental care delivery transformation rather than adaptation.
The Takeaway
MedAxiom’s 2025 compensation survey captures cardiovascular care at a turning point because while provider compensation reaches historic highs, access metrics reveal capacity shortcomings that compensation probably won’t solve. Whether or not more APPs or more physicians is the right answer remains to be seen.
