What your hospital pays.
National figures, 2020–2024, from hospitals’ own IRS filings and federal wage data. For your own hospital’s executive pay, raises and finances, look it up.
Nurse executives were the only group to lose ground. Staff nurses did not fall furthest behind — they beat inflation, barely. The difference in growth is about four points. The difference in level is seventeen times.
See what your hospital reported paying →- A bedside nurse never appears on a Form 990. It lists officers, key employees and the five highest-paid staff over $100K. The nursing titles we can see are chief nursing officers — $327,197 median. Not a staff nurse, and not presented as one.
- Staff nurse pay is a different source: BLS national median, all industries. Your state and hospital will differ.
- The top-paid person is not always the CEO — sometimes a surgeon or a system executive.
- 990 pay includes deferred compensation, which can spike in the year it pays out.
About this data. Every executive figure comes from a hospital’s own IRS filing and each hospital page links to it. These are medians across filers, not the pay at any one hospital, and not a statement about whether anyone is paid appropriately. Figures lag one to two years. Published for general information only — not legal, financial or employment advice. If a figure does not match the filing it links to, tell us and we will correct it: cashpaymed.org