Overall, physician compensation is on the rise, and orthopedic physicians receive, on average, higher compensation than other specialists, according to "Physician Compensation Report 2013," released by Medscape.

When medical groups create physician base salaries, market salary data is still the top determinant, according to the American Medical Group Association's 2012 medical group compensation and financial survey.

Primary care physicians who treat Medicaid patients in Rhode Island, New York, California, Michigan, New Jersey and Florida may be able to breathe a little easier next year, as their Medicaid pay rates are estimated to increase more than 100 percent, according to a report from The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured (pdf).

Cardiac surgeons and orthopedic surgeons continue to be among the most highly paid physicians, but hematologists and medical oncologists witnesses the largest one-year jump in compensation in 2011, according to the American Medical Group Association's 2012 medical group compensation and financial survey.

Salary is the most basic component of any compensation package, but what are the most common benefits outside of salary that hospitals and practices offer physicians?

Roughly 79 percent of all physician specialties experienced raises in compensation in 2011, although most of the increases were nominal, according to the American Medical Group Association's 2012 Medical Group Compensation and Financial Survey.

Roughly 56 percent of hospitals have a physician compensation governance structure, and that number is expected to rise as more physicians become hospital employees, according to a survey from consulting and compensation firm Yaffe & Company (pdf).

More than 86 percent of physicians said income in their practices has been flat or declining over the past three years, according to a recent survey from Merritt Hawkins.

From 2007 through 2010, many physician specialties in practices saw an increase in compensation, but the surgical specialties witnessed some of the largest pay growth in that four-year span, according to the American Medical Group Association's 2011 compensation and financial report, based on 2010 data.

Despite the prevalence of pay-for-performance compensation in healthcare, a new editorial in the British Journal of Medicine suggests the concept "rests on flawed assumptions about medicine, measurement and motivation" and may encourage providers to game the system.