special pays
Reminder to Graduating Residents – You are Now Eligible for GMO Incentive Pay
Congratulations to those who graduated residency. Medical Corps officers who complete initial residency on active duty are eligible for the General Medical Officer (GMO) Incentive Pay (IP) the day after completing residency. For those who complete residency while not on active duty (NADDS), they are eligible on they day they report to their permanent command.
This means you need to go to your Special Pays coordinator, if you haven’t already, and apply for the GMO IP. It increases you from a residency IP of $8,000 per year to the GMO IP of $20,000 per year.
All FY25 Pay Plans Posted on BUMED Site
All FY25 pay plans can now be seen on the BUMED Special Pays website:
FY25 Medical Corps Pay Plan
Many of you have seen the announcement for FY25 MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OFFICER SPECIAL PAYS FOR ACTIVE DUTY (NAVADMIN 198/24) but noticed the link to the BUMED Special Pays website does not have the FY25 plan. The website will take a few days to update. In the meantime, the FY25 MC Special Pays Plan is attached below.
BUMED N1 estimated that the plan includes an additional $14 million in salary support. That number has been adjusted to $16 million. It remains “the most aggressive Medical Department pay plan in Navy history.” Many are shocked that it was passed but it speaks to a recognition by Congress that we need to aggressively incentivize military physician retention.
In addition to increased compensation for active duty, the FY25 Plan provides increased and expanded accession bonuses (ABs) to improve our Medical Corps end strength through direct accessions. In the spirit of the CNO’s “Every Sailor is a Recruiter” program, the Surgeon General has authorized the Corps Chiefs’ Office to sponsor teams to conduct recruitment activities at specialty-specific scientific/educational conferences. If you are interested in partnering with recruiters from Navy Recruiting Command to improve manning for your specialty, please contact your specialty leader about potential opportunities. Several specialties already have proposals awaiting FY25 lines of accounting.
The MC plan can be found here:
Reminder to Graduating Residents – You are Now Eligible for GMO Incentive Pay
Congratulations to those who graduated residency. Medical Corps officers who complete initial residency on active duty are eligible for the General Medical Officer (GMO) Incentive Pay (IP) the day after completing residency. For those who complete residency while not on active duty (NADDS), they are eligible on they day they report to their permanent command.
This means you need to go to your Special Pays coordinator, if you haven’t already, and apply for the GMO IP. It increases you from a residency IP of $8,000 per year to the GMO IP of $20,000 per year.
Special Pay Notification
This was an unusually busy year for processing special pay requests as the Navy Medicine Special Pays team in partnership with DFAS processed over 4,000 special pay requests, amounting to five times the normal annual workload. With the large volume of requests processed, we ask that constituents review their Leave and Earning Statements (LES) for accuracy. If an anomaly is discovered, please follow the steps outlined below.
o Constituent will contact Command Special Pay Coordinator or Command Pay and Personnel Administrator.
o Constituents Command Special Pay Coordinator or Command Pay and Personnel Administrator should review constituents Master Military Pay Account for errors.
o If anomalies are discovered, Command Special Pay Coordinator or Command Pay and Personnel Administrator will contact the BUMED Special Pay Program Manager with constituent’s name and details of anomaly.
Guest Post – FY24 Navy Medical Corps Special Pay Guidance – What Changed?
By CDR Dustin Schuett, MC, USN
The FY-24 Navy Active Component Medical Corps (MC) Special Pay Guidance was released on October 17, 2023 following the release of the DoD Medical Corps Certification Pay, Incentive Pay, and Retention Bonus FY-24 document on October 1, 2023.
The most notable change is that Board Certification Pay (BCP) increased from $6,000 to $8,000 per year. The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) enacted on July 1, 2021 authorized an increase in Board Certification Pay from $6,000 per year to $15,000 per year. The increase to $8,000 in the FY24 plan is the first increase in Board Certification Pay since the FY 2017 MC Special Pay Guidelines released in September 2016. This change is retroactive to October 1, 2023, however, to receive this $166.67 per month increase in BCP, physicians must agree to remain on active duty for 12 months from October 1, 2023. Physicians will need to submit a request for the increase in BCP.
Several specialties received increases in Retention Bonuses (RB). Physicians in Aerospace Medicine and Pediatrics received $2,000 increases in 2-year Retention bonuses and Psychiatry received a $1,000 increase for 2-year retention bonuses. Aerospace Medicine received a $5,000 per year increase for 3-year RBs. Several specialties received $5,000 per year increases for 4-year RB’s including Dermatology, Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, Gastroenterology, Internal Medicine, Neurology, OBGYN, Ophthalmology, Otolaryngology, Pathology, Pediatrics, Pulmonary Critical Care and Physicians in Subspecialty Categories II through V.*
The 4-year RB for Cardiologists, Radiologists, and Urologists increased by $10,000 per year and the 4-year RB for Neurosurgeons functionally increased by $21,000 as the Incentive Pay (IP) for Neurosurgeons on a 4-year RB increased from $59,000 to $80,000 though the actual Retention Bonus did not change.
Family Medicine physicians regained the option for a 6-year RB for the first time since the FY19 Special Pay document at $55,000 per year. The 6-year RB for Emergency Medicine and Pulm/Critical Care increased by $5,000 and the 6-year RB for Adult Cardiologists increased by $10,000.
A change to prior policy is that subject to acceptance by the Chief of BUMED, a physician with an existing RB contract who has served at least half of that RB contract may request termination of that contract in order to enter into a new RB contract with an obligation equal to or longer than the remaining obligation of the current RB.
The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act authorized an increase Incentive Pay (from a max of $100,000 to a max of $200,000 per year), despite this, no specialty has seen an increase in Incentive Pay since the FY17 Medical Corps Special Pay Document. There have been no changes to Incentive Pay for Interns, Residents, or General Medical Officers since the FY17 Special Pay Guidance. The cumulative inflation in the US since the FY17 Special Pay Guidance was released is over 28%.
A 2020 study by the Government Accountability Office found that physicians in 2/3 of specialties cannot reach the 20th percentile of civilian compensation for their specialty. The FY-24 Special Pay Guidance did not significantly change that statistic even without accounting for the 9.6% average increase in civilian average physician income.
*Subspecialty Category II: IM Nuclear Medicine,
Subspecialty Category III: IM/Pediatrics Subspecialties in Allergy, Immunology, Nephrology, Heme/Onc, and Neonatology
Subspecialty IV: Other IM/Peds subspecialties not in Cat I or III, Infectious Disease, Rheumatology, Geriatrics, Endocrinology, Clinical Pharmacology, Developmental Pediatrics, and Peds Intensive Care
Subspecialty V: Physician Fellowship Trained in Ophthalmology, Otolaryngology, Gynecologic Surgery & Obstetrics, and Urology
The views expressed in this blog post are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy of the department of the Navy, Department of Defense, or U.S. Government.
This document was approved by the Public Affairs Office at Naval Medicine Readiness and Training Command San Diego.
FY24 Special Pays Plan Released
All of the new guidance can be found on the special pays page. Here is the update they posted that tells about the new increased Board Certification Pay:
17 Oct 2023: The FY24 NAVADMIN and Pay Guidance has been released, and requests effective as far back as 1 Oct 23 have 30 days (15 Nov 23) to be submitted, and not required to be retroactive. There are significant changes in the Pay Guidance for each Corps, which are highlighted in yellow, and there is a power point on the webpage with the changes as well.
For the BCP change a member who is receiving BCP prior to 1 Oct 23, needs to submit a new request for the BCP change effective 1 Oct 23, if eligible, and agree to remain on active duty for one year from the effective date of the BCP to receive it, and if board certified prior to 1 Oct 23, and not receiving BCP, must submit two requests for each rate of BCP.
Any questions please direct them to your command Human Resources Department/Administrative Office, who should contact BUMED at the below email address.
Reminder to Graduating Residents – You are Now Eligible for GMO Incentive Pay
Congratulations to those who graduated residency. Medical Corps officers who complete initial residency on active duty are eligible for the General Medical Officer (GMO) Incentive Pay (IP) the day after completing residency. For those who complete residency while not on active duty (NADDS), they are eligible on they day they report to their permanent command.
This means you need to go to your Special Pays coordinator, if you haven’t already, and apply for the GMO IP. It increases you from a residency IP of $8,000 per year to the GMO IP of $20,000 per year.
Back Dated Special Pay Requests Due 3 DEC
Here are some bullets about the recently released pay plan from the Medical Corps Chief’s Office:
- Eligible members have until 3 Dec 2022 to be able to submit requests effective for 1 Oct 2022 without having to use the retroactive templates. Any request submitted and dated on, or after, 4 Dec 2022 for an effective date more than 30 days prior will be required to use the retroactive templates.
- BUMED cannot guarantee pay before end of year tax cutoff for an acceptance letter received on, or after, 1 December 2022. If received after 1 December for an effective date in calendar year 2022, and it does not get paid in tax year 2022, then the member could receive two payments in tax year 2023.
- Additional guidance can be found at the BUMED Special Pays webpage https://www.med.navy.mil/Special-Pays/
- Contact your local special pays representative with processing questions.
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