Prosthetics salaries: Summary of responses (LONG)
Bill Lifford
Description
Collection
Title:
Prosthetics salaries: Summary of responses (LONG)
Creator:
Bill Lifford
Date:
1/31/2000
Text:
Here is a list of responses to my inital posting about
prosthetics salaries, from roughly a month ago. I will NOT
release the names of posters on this summary because a number of
people told me how much they made. I feel like that was a very
nice and open gesture from those people, and I want to respect
their privacy.
DO NOT CROSS-POST THIS TO OTHER LISTS. This is a private issue
between practitioners. It is not appropriate to cross-post this
to any other lists.
=======================================
THE RESPONSES:
=======================================
I'm a prosthetist in Southern California. Upon certification, my
salary increased to $50K/yr and I'm a female. After one year of
certification and the increased job responsibilities you have,
I'd say you should be making something close to $60K - that's if
you were out here.
-----------------------------------------
I think you need to provide or find out 2 things. 1. How has your
efforts effected the sales of you facility? How much of an
increase over the prior year and a comparison of the prior 3
years would probably help as well. 2.What difference has your
efforts made in your facilities profitability? If you are
spending more than you are taking in there really wouldn't be
anything available for pay increases, would there?
Without that information or knowing what you make now it is
difficult to say what you should be earning. I would say you
should expect to make any where from $55,000 to $70,000 per year.
As you know you command more because of where you live and work
but also if you are extremely profitable you should earn more
than I am suggesting.
------------------------------------------------
with the abundant oversight that is needed with a first year of
experience I would think that you probably should get a feel for
how much supervision you need and how many patients you have
seen. Then multiply the # of prosthetic by 10k to get a fair
average of gross billings. 5% of that would be a great
salary depending on overhead etc.
-----------------------------------------------
With the proven efforts you describe and if you are working well
with your colleagues and staff (without personality quirks) I
would think could make at least $55,000.
I'd be interested in other replies you receive. (Be sure to
delete names)
------------------------------------------------
General rule of thumb is, your salary should be about 1/4 of what
you bill out on your patients. When you get about 5 years post
certification, you should be doing well. By the way, open your
own practice in four years. Prepare for it now. My partner and I
just opened our own place after managing offices for others. We
will probably make between $100,000 to $250,000 a year easily.
That is 100,000 the first year; with all the perks.
You have no idea how wonderful owning your own place will be.
-----------------------------------------------------
Bill...I have been asking this question for years. (and never
received a good answer!) I can relate some of my experiences,
with the understanding that I have been Certified since 1972 in
Prosthetics, am currently Board eligible in Orthotics, and have
one article published in the Journal. What I have found out in
the past years:
Northwestern University PO Center was willing to pay up to
$75,000 for a CP or CO with 20+ years experience. (1997)
Last summer, I was offer $50,000 plus benefits to manage a
Novacare facility in Illinois. (1999)
I was making $63,000 while managing a facility for Actra
(Milwaukee based/Illinois location), plus benefits and a %.
(1992-95)
Until I became a budget cut in '98, a Rockford, IL Level 1 Trauma
Center/Medical Center paid over $90,000.
I have heard quoted from Chicago lab owners, that they can get a
newly Certified Practitioner for $35-40,000.
So, I think I can say from experience, get what ever the market
will bear. From your posting, it sounds like you are doing
things right which will equal profit in the future. As an aside,
for your reference, I have found that 1/3 of the cost of a
prosthesis is for materials/central fab, 1/3 for overhead and 1/3
for profit. This rough formula worked for me for the ten years I
owned my own facility (1981-91) and for my current employment.
Also, if you are in patient/facility management, you should try
for a percentage of the business/ profit. And excellent benefits
could equal less in the paycheck which is reasonable.
-------------------------------------------------
If you do all that why not open your own facility? 15-20g sets
up a great shop. I know a prosthetist who is in similar
situation comp. make 1 mil he gets 90k. He also runs shop etc.
-------------------------------------------------
Bill - Don't know that I have a definitive answer to your
question, just a guess at a range of 80-90 plus bonus based on
revenue up to 110-120'ish, based on people I've talked to.
However, I would be personally interested in knowing what kind of
answers you receive, for similar reasons, if you don't mind.
-------------------------------------------------
n your case, I don't think it matters about how long you have
been certified. If it is true that your caseload is about 80
patients at any given time and you are the chief cook and bottle
washer and bringing in all those referrals, it seems that your
previous requirement of $70,000.00 would be way too low. If I
were you, I would try to calculate the dollar amount of work you
are bringing in for your employers and request a percentage for
all prosthetic revenues in addition to your salary. For example,
suppose you do about 40 prostheses per month. The average
reimbursement between AK and BK would be approximately $6000.00;
that's $240,000.00/month for your bosses.
That's almost 3 mil/year. If your employers are good at managing
their business, profit margins run between 20%-30%. You figure
out the numbers. A couple of percentage points or three would
certainly be worth it to them to have you stay on. You are a
cash machine for them; why shouldn't you get some of that?
As we have discussed before, my company always offers a
percentage of the revenues of the referrals they produce because
we feel it is a motivational tool and affects the practitioners
in a positive way.
-----------------------------------------------
Depending on your billing and other factors I would say in the
range of 40-60,000 as well a s consideration of other benifits
--------------------------------------------
I'm BOCP certified, 9 yrs experience in field, 10 yrs as an
active Rt AKA. I was one of two pracs at my facility, I saw avg.
3 to 5 pts per day, did a fair amount of my own tech work,
inservices (not very many. I handled the personnel issues,
settled arguments, (8 employees), reprimands, hires and fires.
My last year there we did approx. $1.4 mil. + in prosthetics
alone. At years end with my bonus etc. I did 80k. I had no idea
what was fair market value but I knew my own #'s and I knew how
my relationships with patients were. I was happy with what I
negotiated. I'd like to know what #'s you're thinking for my own
curiosity. But it was short lived as the owner sold to Hanger
and I left.
----------------------------------------
Please do not use my name if you re-post this. I am a staff
level practitioner (not an owner) who currently is the only
prosthetist at the facility I work in. I have about 4 years
experience post-certification (in prosthetics), ten year post-PO
school, and am dually certified. I recently switched jobs and
interviewed with several companies (no one turned me down - which
probably says more about the market than my superb abilities:)
First of all, you don't get what you deserve, you get what you
negotiate. To some extent the main point is if you can convince
the employer in significant ways that the number you have in mind
is a deal for them. Don't make the specific salary amount the
the main negotiating point. Make your abilities, role, and
responsibilities the main point. Their number one goal is to pay
you as little as possible - someone needs to represent your
interests, and you're the guy. Tell them what they are getting
for that dollar amount. Also, know what they want - what are
their goals for the company? I work for an owner who is very
content to not expand to multiple offices, for instance. Do they
have specific goals for their company? You can get what you want
by helping other people get what they want. One of the Proverbs
says: He who tends a fig tree will eat its fruit, and he who
looks after his master will be honored.
If someone came into my office and told me they deserved more
than what I thought they did, but did nothing but sit and talk
about it, I wouldn't be very optimistic about their abilities.
Show them in specific, measurable ways. Get good data on what
volume you are doing now - how much do you bring in now, how many
referral sources do you work with now, what are the key ones,
what are the most desirable that you don't yet have? Show them
that no one knows prosthetics at that office better than you, or
at least that you have put a lot of energy into knowing your and
their business profile.
I would suggest developing a specific vision and action plan,
that lays out for the employer the specific goals and tasks that
you will work toward accomplishing. Put together a package -
professional binder, Powerpoint presentation, or whatever else
you can think of. Be creative and realistic. Give the employer
a way of measuring your goals - X number of inservices at these
hospitals, X number of patients, dollar volume, getting a new
referral source, etc. Suggest specific times when you can meet
in the next year to follow up on the progress of your efforts.
If you lay all this out, and they say Sorry, you want too much
money, you can ask How much is it worth to you to meet your
goals? What specific points of my plan do you think would
hinder you meeting your goals, and what would help? What
specific points of my plan make you think that I am worth less
money than this? Most prosthetists do not like to do inservices
and marketing stuff, and if they do, are not great at it, so the
employer needs to see this as a great benefit you offer. If they
don't, then perhaps another firm does.
As far as a specific number - NY is probably a higher priced
market. Without knowing what you are making now, and what other
practitioners in your area are making, I'm shooting in the dark.
Here in the Heartland 50K would be a good amount. I'd also
consider a commission package - accept a lower salary than you
want, IF you can benefit by getting a percentage of the volume.
(This only works if you have access to all the data that they do
- volume billed and collected, expenses, etc.) This is not an
uncommon practice in this industry - but be careful and protect
yourself.
I'd be interested to know how your review goes - I'm not asking
for specific numbers, but I'd like to get some insight into how
you go about presenting your case. I have been at this new job
for about 6 months, and am planning on initiating a review with
my boss to go over some of these same things.
-----------------------------------------
Bill, when I was an employee I was given a figure that you could
try. I was told that I should produce at least 7 times my annual
salary. That means if you want $50,000 per year you should be
bringing in at least $350,000 yourself. Your area is more
expensive than here in Minnesota so that would raise the rate
some also. It bothers me that someone with 1 years experience is
the main person in the office, I would think that you should
have more years under someone before being on your own. That is
another story that I won't go into now. Branch managers of the
bigger corporate offices are earning 80,000 plus bonus but they
have 10-15 years with the company. I hope that is helpful to you.
Good luck.
-------------------------------------------
I am not sure what part of the country you practice in, but our
company pays staff prosthetists, orthotists and prosthetists/
orthotists between 52,000 and 69,000 per annum in salary and
bonuses. We have staff professionals that are ABC, BOC and
eligible graduates. Our patient care facility managers earn
salary and bonuses that add up to a range of $58,500 to $103,000
per annum. Production per clinician (staff or manager) runs from
a low of $564,000 to a high of $834,000 gross billings. Total
clinical professional employed is 14.
Our patient care facilities are located in Texas, New
Mexico and Oklahoma. Experience for our ABC folks averages 5
years and our BOC clinicians average 7 years. Our positions are
filled by qualification and demonstrated ability, not just
according to what certification you might hold. In any case,
Texas clinicians must hold curent Texas licenses.
Best of luck to you. If you are so inclined, I would appreciate
your thoughts on how well we fit into the information you gather
concerning this question.
---------------------------------------
Good luck in your query and let me know what kinds of salaries
you have been hearing about. I have friends making $55k-$70. I
work for the VA and am paid poorly but get other benefits. In a
year or so I will be looking as well. I have been told by others
that $45-55 for single certification and a years
experience is about right. Let me know what you hear.
------------------------------------------
Persuade your boss to let you work on a commission. If you are a
hard worker it will pay off. Good luck. I hate reviews.
========================================
END OF RESPONSES
=======================================
prosthetics salaries, from roughly a month ago. I will NOT
release the names of posters on this summary because a number of
people told me how much they made. I feel like that was a very
nice and open gesture from those people, and I want to respect
their privacy.
DO NOT CROSS-POST THIS TO OTHER LISTS. This is a private issue
between practitioners. It is not appropriate to cross-post this
to any other lists.
=======================================
THE RESPONSES:
=======================================
I'm a prosthetist in Southern California. Upon certification, my
salary increased to $50K/yr and I'm a female. After one year of
certification and the increased job responsibilities you have,
I'd say you should be making something close to $60K - that's if
you were out here.
-----------------------------------------
I think you need to provide or find out 2 things. 1. How has your
efforts effected the sales of you facility? How much of an
increase over the prior year and a comparison of the prior 3
years would probably help as well. 2.What difference has your
efforts made in your facilities profitability? If you are
spending more than you are taking in there really wouldn't be
anything available for pay increases, would there?
Without that information or knowing what you make now it is
difficult to say what you should be earning. I would say you
should expect to make any where from $55,000 to $70,000 per year.
As you know you command more because of where you live and work
but also if you are extremely profitable you should earn more
than I am suggesting.
------------------------------------------------
with the abundant oversight that is needed with a first year of
experience I would think that you probably should get a feel for
how much supervision you need and how many patients you have
seen. Then multiply the # of prosthetic by 10k to get a fair
average of gross billings. 5% of that would be a great
salary depending on overhead etc.
-----------------------------------------------
With the proven efforts you describe and if you are working well
with your colleagues and staff (without personality quirks) I
would think could make at least $55,000.
I'd be interested in other replies you receive. (Be sure to
delete names)
------------------------------------------------
General rule of thumb is, your salary should be about 1/4 of what
you bill out on your patients. When you get about 5 years post
certification, you should be doing well. By the way, open your
own practice in four years. Prepare for it now. My partner and I
just opened our own place after managing offices for others. We
will probably make between $100,000 to $250,000 a year easily.
That is 100,000 the first year; with all the perks.
You have no idea how wonderful owning your own place will be.
-----------------------------------------------------
Bill...I have been asking this question for years. (and never
received a good answer!) I can relate some of my experiences,
with the understanding that I have been Certified since 1972 in
Prosthetics, am currently Board eligible in Orthotics, and have
one article published in the Journal. What I have found out in
the past years:
Northwestern University PO Center was willing to pay up to
$75,000 for a CP or CO with 20+ years experience. (1997)
Last summer, I was offer $50,000 plus benefits to manage a
Novacare facility in Illinois. (1999)
I was making $63,000 while managing a facility for Actra
(Milwaukee based/Illinois location), plus benefits and a %.
(1992-95)
Until I became a budget cut in '98, a Rockford, IL Level 1 Trauma
Center/Medical Center paid over $90,000.
I have heard quoted from Chicago lab owners, that they can get a
newly Certified Practitioner for $35-40,000.
So, I think I can say from experience, get what ever the market
will bear. From your posting, it sounds like you are doing
things right which will equal profit in the future. As an aside,
for your reference, I have found that 1/3 of the cost of a
prosthesis is for materials/central fab, 1/3 for overhead and 1/3
for profit. This rough formula worked for me for the ten years I
owned my own facility (1981-91) and for my current employment.
Also, if you are in patient/facility management, you should try
for a percentage of the business/ profit. And excellent benefits
could equal less in the paycheck which is reasonable.
-------------------------------------------------
If you do all that why not open your own facility? 15-20g sets
up a great shop. I know a prosthetist who is in similar
situation comp. make 1 mil he gets 90k. He also runs shop etc.
-------------------------------------------------
Bill - Don't know that I have a definitive answer to your
question, just a guess at a range of 80-90 plus bonus based on
revenue up to 110-120'ish, based on people I've talked to.
However, I would be personally interested in knowing what kind of
answers you receive, for similar reasons, if you don't mind.
-------------------------------------------------
n your case, I don't think it matters about how long you have
been certified. If it is true that your caseload is about 80
patients at any given time and you are the chief cook and bottle
washer and bringing in all those referrals, it seems that your
previous requirement of $70,000.00 would be way too low. If I
were you, I would try to calculate the dollar amount of work you
are bringing in for your employers and request a percentage for
all prosthetic revenues in addition to your salary. For example,
suppose you do about 40 prostheses per month. The average
reimbursement between AK and BK would be approximately $6000.00;
that's $240,000.00/month for your bosses.
That's almost 3 mil/year. If your employers are good at managing
their business, profit margins run between 20%-30%. You figure
out the numbers. A couple of percentage points or three would
certainly be worth it to them to have you stay on. You are a
cash machine for them; why shouldn't you get some of that?
As we have discussed before, my company always offers a
percentage of the revenues of the referrals they produce because
we feel it is a motivational tool and affects the practitioners
in a positive way.
-----------------------------------------------
Depending on your billing and other factors I would say in the
range of 40-60,000 as well a s consideration of other benifits
--------------------------------------------
I'm BOCP certified, 9 yrs experience in field, 10 yrs as an
active Rt AKA. I was one of two pracs at my facility, I saw avg.
3 to 5 pts per day, did a fair amount of my own tech work,
inservices (not very many. I handled the personnel issues,
settled arguments, (8 employees), reprimands, hires and fires.
My last year there we did approx. $1.4 mil. + in prosthetics
alone. At years end with my bonus etc. I did 80k. I had no idea
what was fair market value but I knew my own #'s and I knew how
my relationships with patients were. I was happy with what I
negotiated. I'd like to know what #'s you're thinking for my own
curiosity. But it was short lived as the owner sold to Hanger
and I left.
----------------------------------------
Please do not use my name if you re-post this. I am a staff
level practitioner (not an owner) who currently is the only
prosthetist at the facility I work in. I have about 4 years
experience post-certification (in prosthetics), ten year post-PO
school, and am dually certified. I recently switched jobs and
interviewed with several companies (no one turned me down - which
probably says more about the market than my superb abilities:)
First of all, you don't get what you deserve, you get what you
negotiate. To some extent the main point is if you can convince
the employer in significant ways that the number you have in mind
is a deal for them. Don't make the specific salary amount the
the main negotiating point. Make your abilities, role, and
responsibilities the main point. Their number one goal is to pay
you as little as possible - someone needs to represent your
interests, and you're the guy. Tell them what they are getting
for that dollar amount. Also, know what they want - what are
their goals for the company? I work for an owner who is very
content to not expand to multiple offices, for instance. Do they
have specific goals for their company? You can get what you want
by helping other people get what they want. One of the Proverbs
says: He who tends a fig tree will eat its fruit, and he who
looks after his master will be honored.
If someone came into my office and told me they deserved more
than what I thought they did, but did nothing but sit and talk
about it, I wouldn't be very optimistic about their abilities.
Show them in specific, measurable ways. Get good data on what
volume you are doing now - how much do you bring in now, how many
referral sources do you work with now, what are the key ones,
what are the most desirable that you don't yet have? Show them
that no one knows prosthetics at that office better than you, or
at least that you have put a lot of energy into knowing your and
their business profile.
I would suggest developing a specific vision and action plan,
that lays out for the employer the specific goals and tasks that
you will work toward accomplishing. Put together a package -
professional binder, Powerpoint presentation, or whatever else
you can think of. Be creative and realistic. Give the employer
a way of measuring your goals - X number of inservices at these
hospitals, X number of patients, dollar volume, getting a new
referral source, etc. Suggest specific times when you can meet
in the next year to follow up on the progress of your efforts.
If you lay all this out, and they say Sorry, you want too much
money, you can ask How much is it worth to you to meet your
goals? What specific points of my plan do you think would
hinder you meeting your goals, and what would help? What
specific points of my plan make you think that I am worth less
money than this? Most prosthetists do not like to do inservices
and marketing stuff, and if they do, are not great at it, so the
employer needs to see this as a great benefit you offer. If they
don't, then perhaps another firm does.
As far as a specific number - NY is probably a higher priced
market. Without knowing what you are making now, and what other
practitioners in your area are making, I'm shooting in the dark.
Here in the Heartland 50K would be a good amount. I'd also
consider a commission package - accept a lower salary than you
want, IF you can benefit by getting a percentage of the volume.
(This only works if you have access to all the data that they do
- volume billed and collected, expenses, etc.) This is not an
uncommon practice in this industry - but be careful and protect
yourself.
I'd be interested to know how your review goes - I'm not asking
for specific numbers, but I'd like to get some insight into how
you go about presenting your case. I have been at this new job
for about 6 months, and am planning on initiating a review with
my boss to go over some of these same things.
-----------------------------------------
Bill, when I was an employee I was given a figure that you could
try. I was told that I should produce at least 7 times my annual
salary. That means if you want $50,000 per year you should be
bringing in at least $350,000 yourself. Your area is more
expensive than here in Minnesota so that would raise the rate
some also. It bothers me that someone with 1 years experience is
the main person in the office, I would think that you should
have more years under someone before being on your own. That is
another story that I won't go into now. Branch managers of the
bigger corporate offices are earning 80,000 plus bonus but they
have 10-15 years with the company. I hope that is helpful to you.
Good luck.
-------------------------------------------
I am not sure what part of the country you practice in, but our
company pays staff prosthetists, orthotists and prosthetists/
orthotists between 52,000 and 69,000 per annum in salary and
bonuses. We have staff professionals that are ABC, BOC and
eligible graduates. Our patient care facility managers earn
salary and bonuses that add up to a range of $58,500 to $103,000
per annum. Production per clinician (staff or manager) runs from
a low of $564,000 to a high of $834,000 gross billings. Total
clinical professional employed is 14.
Our patient care facilities are located in Texas, New
Mexico and Oklahoma. Experience for our ABC folks averages 5
years and our BOC clinicians average 7 years. Our positions are
filled by qualification and demonstrated ability, not just
according to what certification you might hold. In any case,
Texas clinicians must hold curent Texas licenses.
Best of luck to you. If you are so inclined, I would appreciate
your thoughts on how well we fit into the information you gather
concerning this question.
---------------------------------------
Good luck in your query and let me know what kinds of salaries
you have been hearing about. I have friends making $55k-$70. I
work for the VA and am paid poorly but get other benefits. In a
year or so I will be looking as well. I have been told by others
that $45-55 for single certification and a years
experience is about right. Let me know what you hear.
------------------------------------------
Persuade your boss to let you work on a commission. If you are a
hard worker it will pay off. Good luck. I hate reviews.
========================================
END OF RESPONSES
=======================================
Citation
Bill Lifford, “Prosthetics salaries: Summary of responses (LONG),” Digital Resource Foundation for Orthotics and Prosthetics, accessed November 8, 2024, https://library.drfop.org/items/show/213706.
