--- title: Medicare: Female Doctors Are Reimbursed Less Than Male Docs description: Female physicians were reimbursed almost $19,000 less than male doctors, according to a study published in the Postgraduate Medical Journal canonical: https://time.com/4452372/women-doctors-medicine-pay-gap/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-15T22:30:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T23:59:09.456Z article:section: Health og:title: Medicare Pays Female Doctors Nearly $19,000 Less Than Male Doctors og:description: Women physicians were reimbursed less than men across specialties, according to a study og:url: https://time.com/4452372/women-doctors-medicine-pay-gap/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3548ea2cf368c584/6987789406f2c1d0713333f9/health-first-aid-kit-2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: TIME.com stock photos Health First Aid Kit og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Medicare Pays Female Doctors Nearly $19,000 Less Than Male Doctors twitter:description: Women physicians were reimbursed less than men across specialties, according to a study twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3548ea2cf368c584/6987789406f2c1d0713333f9/health-first-aid-kit-2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Medicare Pays Female Doctors Nearly $19,000 Less Than Male Doctors: Study > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Aug 15, 2016 10:30 PM UTC  Elizabeth Renstrom for TIME  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Aug 15, 2016 10:30 PM UTC In a single year, Medicare reimbursed female physicians almost $19,000 less than male doctors, according to a new [study](http://pmj.bmj.com/embargo?embargoed-uri=http%3A%2F%2Fpmj.bmj.com%2Fcontent%2Fearly%2F2016%2F06%2F27%2Fpostgradmedj-2016-134094) published in _Postgraduate Medical Journal_. The researchers didn’t think they’d see a gender gap when they analyzed more than 3 million Medicare reimbursement claims for 2012 for more than 245,000 providers. Still, they compared the reimbursements received by male and female physicians across 13 medical specialties to see if there was a gap. Even after adjusting for how hard physicians worked, how productive they were and their level of experience, a big gap remained against women doctors: $18,677\. In almost every specialty, women were reimbursed less than men. The largest gap by sex—$16,688—occurred in nephrology, and pulmonary medicine and internal medicine were the next worst for women being reimbursed. Specialties with the narrowest gap were hematology, medical oncology and critical care. “We didn’t expect there to be such a difference across so many specialties,” says Dr. Tejas Desai, one of the study’s authors and a nephrologist at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Salisbury, North Carolina. “None of your factors, like gender or age, should matter into your reimbursement. It’s a menu: you do X, you get Y.” Yet in 11 of 13 specialties, the gap persisted. It isn’t the first time researchers have noticed a pay gap by gender in medicine. Recent research found that [female doctors are paid about 8% less than male doctors](http://time.com/4398888/doctors-gender-wage-gap/?iid=sr-link1), a difference that equals about $20,000\. One explanation for that result may be that women tend to negotiate their salaries less aggressively than men. But it’s not clear why gender would matter in Medicare reimbursements. Even Desai can’t explain it. “In this case there is no negotiation; Medicare sets it, and everybody has to accept it. We tried to make a study designed in a way so that the most common explanations are accounted for or completely eliminated from the equation.” However, one factor that may be playing a role is geography, he says. If more female doctors live in parts of the country that are reimbursed less by Medicare, that could be contributing to the gender pay disparity. Desai and his team are planning to account for those geographic differences in an upcoming study, which will track Medicare reimbursements over years and by specialty. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4452372/women-doctors-medicine-pay-gap/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4452372/women-doctors-medicine-pay-gap/"},"headline":"Medicare Pays Female Doctors Nearly $19,000 Less Than Male Doctors: Study","datePublished":"2016-08-15T22:30:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T23:59:09.456Z","description":"In a new analysis of Medicare reimbursements, women physicians were reimbursed less than men across specialties","url":"https://time.com/4452372/women-doctors-medicine-pay-gap/","keywords":["medicine"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3548ea2cf368c584/6987789406f2c1d0713333f9/health-first-aid-kit-2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mandy Oaklander","jobTitle":"Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3548ea2cf368c584/6987789406f2c1d0713333f9/health-first-aid-kit-2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TIME.com stock photos Health First Aid Kit","caption":"TIME.com stock photos Health First Aid Kit","creditText":"Elizabeth Renstrom for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/medicine/","name":"medicine"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4452372/women-doctors-medicine-pay-gap/","name":"Medicare Pays Female Doctors Nearly $19,000 Less Than Male Doctors: Study"}}]}] ```