Methodology you can inspect
A useful estimate earns trust by showing what it measures, what shaped it, and where the data stops.
Current model: signal-v1.1
What Signal estimates
The primary Signal is annual total compensation for an attending role: base salary plus bonus, production, and other reported cash compensation. Base salary and effective hourly ranges appear separately only when enough comparable reports include those fields.
Which reports qualify
Signal uses approved realized-compensation and accepted-offer reports from the most recent four years. Trainee compensation is excluded from attending estimates, and implausible or incomplete compensation records do not enter the published cohort.
How the cohort is chosen
Signal starts with specialty and the strongest useful geography. When enough comparable reports exist, it can also use attending experience, practice setting, and weekly workload. If a narrow cohort is too small, Signal widens it and tells you which refinement was omitted.
What the range means
The displayed range runs from the 25th to the 75th percentile of the selected cohort. The midpoint is the median. This is a distribution of physician-reported outcomes, not an uncertainty interval and not a promise that every role should fall inside it.
When SalaryDr withholds a number
SalaryDr does not publish a Signal with fewer than five verified reports. Refined cohorts require more support. Coverage labels reflect the number of reports, geographic precision, and how many requested refinements the data supports.
Independence and privacy
Employer payments never influence a Signal. A compensation number entered for comparison is processed for that request, is not stored by Signal, and is never included in a shared URL. Shared links contain only non-personal cohort inputs.
What Signal does not yet claim
Signal is not an appraisal, a guaranteed offer, or an exact prediction for an individual contract. Call burden, ownership, productivity formulas, benefits, local recruiting pressure, and contract terms can materially change the right number for one role.