How we work out pay

We publish three kinds of pay figure and we never average them into one number.

• Posted pay

  What employers put in their own job adverts. We only show it when at least 5 postings back it up. It tells you what is being advertised, which is not always what gets paid.

• Federal wage data

  The US Bureau of Labor Statistics survey. Wide coverage, but a year or two behind, and it does not separate health centers from every other employer.

• Clinician-reported pay

  What clinicians tell us they actually earn. The most useful of the three and the hardest to get, which is why we ask.

They answer different questions. Presenting them as one average would hide the disagreement between them, and the disagreement is often the most useful part.

• A clinician-reported group publishes at 3 or more different people. Below that we publish nothing.
• Posted pay needs at least 5 qualifying job postings.
• Stock-unit groups are separate again, and publish at 20 people.
• We publish a range, never an individual figure, and we show how many people are in the group.
• We only use pay from the last three years, and every published range shows the months it covers.
• A published range is refreshed at most every 90 days, so it cannot be nudged by a single new submission.

1. You tell us your role, your state, your base pay and the month it applies to.
2. We email you a link so we know a real person is behind the number.
3. A person reviews it. We check it is plausible and that it is one contribution per clinician, so nobody can shift a range by submitting repeatedly.
4. It joins a group. Your number is only ever part of a range alongside at least 2 others.

• We will not show your pay on its own. Only as part of a range.
• Recruiters do not see individual contributions. Our recruiters see the same published ranges you do.
• We will not sell it.
• We will not ask for your employer's name in the pay form, and we ask you not to put it in the notes.
• You can remove it at any time. Ranges already published elsewhere, or copied by someone else, cannot be recalled.

Being straight about the limits is part of being trusted with the data.

• This is not anonymous to us. Your contribution is tied to your account, which is how you can remove it. It is private, not anonymous.
• Confirming your email proves you can receive mail at that address. It does not verify your licence or that your pay figure is accurate.
• A group of 3 is a small sample. It is a signal, not a market rate, and we show the group size so you can judge it yourself.

Health Center Careers is run by Opportunity Healthcare, a recruiting firm that works with health centers and is paid by employers when a hire is made. We say so here because you are deciding whether to trust us with your pay, and that is the kind of thing you should know before you decide.

Our recruiters get no special access to this data. They see the published ranges, the same as anyone reading the site.