Salary and Education

Based on the results of our salary survey, levels of education have a decided impact on salaries earned in physical therapy-although not in the way some might believe.

Participants in the survey were asked to identify their level of education from four main categories-non-four-year college graduates (high school or GED, some college experience, associate's degree), college graduates (bachelor's degree), master's degree (MA, MBA, MPH, MS) or doctorate degree (DPT, PhD).

Those who fell into the non-four-year college graduate category showed the lowest salaries, with the three categories reporting an average annual salary of $32,261. The surprising results came from the other three categories, where the discrepancies between salaries were minimal.

College graduates with bachelor's degrees in the physical therapy field reported an average salary of $62,084, comparing favorably to those PTs with master's degrees (average salary of $64,247 annually) and those with DPT or PhD degrees ($64,192 annually).

Six percent of respondents-about 300 people totalidentified their educational level as something other than the above categories. That group reported an average annual income of $61,337.

Levels of Education

Respondents were split almost 50-50 between those with master's or doctorate degrees and those without. While only 2.2 percent of respondents reported having earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree, these respondents reported the highest average annual salary of any individual educational level at $75,431.

Not surprisingly, the most common level of education reported was a bachelor's degree, comprising 32 percent of respondents. Following closely thereafter was the MSPT degree at 30 percent. Associate's degree was third-most popular, at 14 percent, followed by the DPT at 10 percent. As previously stated, 6 percent of respondents cited another level of education. The other eight percent was comprised of those with master's degrees other than MSPTs, and people who were either high school graduates or had only completed some college.

Along gender lines, male respondents reported an average annual salary of $60,058, while females reported earning $51,106. The good news is that the majority of males and females in similar positions earn comparable paythe difference can likely be attributed to a larger number of males in higher-level positions.

Pay Based on Experience

First-year physical therapists responding to our survey reported an average salary of just under $43,000 per year, which compares quite favorably to salaries in similar fields. Following that first year, our results indicate that therapists can expect an annual increase of about 5 percent, before salaries tend to level off around year eight of their careers with a salary in the high-$50,000 to low-$60,000 range.

Using this information as a composite, the height of a therapist's earning potential seems to be between years 15 to 20 of his career-or right around age 40. Therapists with more than 20 years of experience can expect salaries in the low-to-mid 70s. According to the survey, salaries can again level off after a therapist reaches 35 years of experience-however, as you might imagine, the number of responses from therapists with that level of experience was limited-less than 100 such clinicians.

Eighty-two percent of respondents said they had been practicing PT for 15 years or less, with more than 50 percent of those respondents falling between one and five years experience. Another 12 percent were in years 16 to 25 of their career, with the final 6 percent having upward of 25 years of experience.

Salary and Setting

According to our results, setting also seems to impact the salaries of physical therapists and PTAs. In the case of both PTs and PTAs, outpatient and clinical settings are the most common place to work followed by long-term care facilities, hospitals and private practice.

In the outpatient setting, average salaries range from $46,655 all the way up to $103,000 while inpatient practitioners reported salaries ranging from $30,000 to $73,000.

Location of the setting may have some impact on the salaries, as outpatient practitioners reported far higher numbers working in suburban areas (48.5 percent), followed by urban areas (32.7 percent) and rural areas (18.8 percent). On the other hand, the majority of PTs in inpatient settings (50.3 percent) worked in urban areas followed by suburban practitioners (34.1 percent) and rural practitioners (15.7 percent).

Physical therapists in academic settings reported salaries ranging from an average of $42,000 for first-year educators to $114,000 for an educator with 32 years of experience. The average salary, however, among educators (full and part time) was $61,850.

School PTs, on average, are making a salary of $55,004. The majority of school-based practitioners reported working in suburban areas at 46.5 percent, however, their counterparts in rural and urban areas are almost evenly distributed at 28.2 and 25.4 percent, respectively.

Examining Home Health

Home-health therapists and PTAs, on average, have a higher salary relative to the PT population at large. The median salary among home-health physical therapists is $61,030, while among the general physical therapy population, the average salary was $59,827. While the difference is not great, it becomes more apparent when broken down by subcategories, such as location.

In most regions, home-health practitioners take home an average salary of approximately $4,000 more than the rest of the physical therapy community. However, in the Pacific region of the country, as well as the Middle Atlantic and Mountain/Southwest regions, home health practitioners average approximately $10,000 more in salary than those who are not in home health.

"Home health has a wider range in income, both on the high and low end," explained Roger Herr, PT, MPA, COS-C. "This is a function of both the flexibility in hours and range of commitment of clinicians."

Home health care practitioners also tend to have a greater level of experience, Herr added. "There is an industry bias to having at least one year of related health care experience before entering home care, so the population will be more experienced," he said.

Benefits are also a difference with home-health practitioners compared to clinical and private-practice PTs. According to the survey results, home-health PTs tend to have fewer benefits than the PT community at large does. A smaller percentage of home-health practitioners receive dental insurance, health insurance, vacation/sick time and other common benefits.

However, according to Herr, the setting lends itself to this type of discrepancy. "Wider variety in benefits leads some to choose to work in places with less benefits. Homecare people work both part-time and full-time, so they may have additional supports as in other modes for getting benefits (partner/spouse)," he said.

Brian W. Ferrie, Rob Senior and Stefanie Kurtz are on staff at ADVANCE.