Gender disparities in Medicare billings among cardiothoracic surgeons

The gender-based wage gap is well-documented in cardiothoracic surgery. 1 In academic medicine, it is largely attributed to nonreimbursable actions such as teaching, research, or committees; hence, community and hybrid practices show more equitable wages and relative value units.2,3 Previous research suggests that Medicare reimbursements contribute to gendered payment disparities among new cardiothoracic surgeons, but this research only included 1 postgraduate year.4 Using Medicare billing data, we confirmed the reimbursement disparity and explored its timing during cardiothoracic surgeons' early careers.This study was performed on analysis of publicly available Medicare data.As such, the acquisition of data and analysis did not require institutional review board approval.Consent was not required.Rows indicate baseline characteristics for the dataset going downward: cohort, gender, region, then specialty.Values are median (quartile 1-quartile 3) or n.