Advanced practice providers have long been viewed as support staff in cardiology, but MedAxiom’s new 2025 APP Compensation and Utilization Report suggests they’ve moved well beyond that role.
- The sixth annual MedAxiom APP report drew responses from 104 cardiovascular organizations (+16% since 2024) across all major U.S. regions.
- For the first time, the survey asked whether APPs hold formal administrative roles, with over half responding “yes.”
To track how APP roles are evolving, MedAxiom benchmarked deployment, compensation, scheduling, and productivity across care settings, finding that…
- Ambulatory cardiology remains the most common setting, reported by nearly 90% of programs.
- Meanwhile 96% of programs reported independent APP scheduling.
- Beyond scheduling, 76% of programs used APPs in clinics without a physician present.
The report also found that APP deployment is shifting toward procedural subspecialties.
- The share of programs deploying APPs in electrophysiology rose from 82% to 87%.
- Structural heart climbed from 62% to 73%.
- Heart failure fell from 83% to 70%
- Prevention dropped from 42% to 35%.
When it comes to compensation, programs trended toward productivity-based models for paying their APPs.
- Programs using productivity-based incentives nearly doubled, rising from 37% in 2022 to 64% in 2025.
- Median total compensation for cardiology APPs reached $131,883 in 2024, with the largest pay increases in procedural specialties.
But compensation hasn’t fully caught up with specialization.
- Despite increased training requirements for APPs in prevention and lipid clinics, more than 95% of programs reported no pay differential for that subspecialty expertise.
The Takeaway
From responsibilities to compensation, the latest MedAxiom APP report reveals that advanced practice providers are becoming increasingly central to the way cardiology organizations operate. What that means for cardiologists and their patients is still up to debate.
