Hay Group, which conducted its survey through interviews and reports of more than 132 physician specialties, found that hospital-based physicians will garner the smallest pay increases at 2 percent. Physicians in group practices can expect to see salary raises of 3 percent, the highest of any organization type.

Here are other major takeaways from Hay Group's survey:

• Physicians saw actual salary increases of 2.5 percent in 2012.

• Employment contracts continued to trend upward last year. In hospitals, 70 percent of physicians had employment contracts in 2012 compared with 64 percent in 2011. Sixty-seven percent of group-based physicians had employment contracts last year compared with 56 percent in 2011.

• Quality measures are becoming more prominent in determining physician incentive payouts.

• Eighty-eight percent of organizations provided some form of malpractice insurance to physicians, and of those groups, 97 percent provided it at no cost.

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