Male MDs earn way more than females in Medicare

The diagnosis: a serious case of medical gender gap. Male doctors on average make 88 percent more in Medicare reimbursements than female physicians, according to an analysis of recently released government data, which suggests that the gender of a medical provider could play a role in the number of services they provide patients. The NerdWallet research found that male physicians on average were paid $118,782 in Medicare reimbursements by the federal government in 2012, compared with $63,346 for women doctors. The difference is particularly striking because Medicare—the government's health insurance program for people 65 and older—pays men and women doctors the same amount for the individual services they perform on patients in the same geographic area.