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I looked at some other federal agencies and it looks like the doctors (medical officers) are normally the highest paid folks at those agencies. For example, medical officers at DOJ are paid more than the two most prominent positions at DOJ (Attorney General and FBI Director), which is kind of funny given that the AG is the head of DOJ.
I did some brief research and there's an exemption for physicians from the usual GS, SES, or EX pay scale and that would be the GP scale.
- GP - Physicians and dentists covered by the General Schedule classification system and GS base pay ranges who receive title 38 market pay instead of locality pay (formerly GS).
The Title 38 market pay can go up to $400,000 depending on specialty.
Looks like there are a few specialty positions in other Departments that have their own payscale that allows salaries higher than the heads of the Departments. For example, Dept. of the Treasury has an NB scale that can pay higher than the Secretary.
Interesting. Never even thought to look into this before. I just assumed the head of whatever agency or department was the highest paid person in that agency or department. Makes sense that very specialized positions that pay a ton in private industry would get special pay scales.[/quote]
It gets a little confusing for me since I don't work in that area but I know total compensation includes base pay, market pay and incentive pay (i.e. performance). For example, the market pay back in 2015 was 375K I think but I remember seeing a few outliers earning slightly more than 400k. Fast forward two FYs later, and in increase of market pay to 400k, you will probably guess like me that a few outliers are probably in the 425-450k range - probably not at 500k yet like I initially suggested. This is still well below the private sector and the VA will need to continually increase to compete for the best doctors available.