Inside 24×7’s 2021 HTM Salary Survey

Keri Stephens:

Hi, welcome to today’s episode of the MEDQOR Podcast Network. I’m Keri Stephens, the chief editor of 24×7. I’m here with my wonderful co-host, Chace Torres, aka the Bearded Biomed. Today-

Chace Torres:

Good day, folks.

Keri Stephens:

Yeah. Today we’re going to talk about the results from 24×7’s HJM salary survey that we get out every year and the results from 2021. We published them in January or February, but it’s actually salaries taken from the previous year. This was the 2021 salary survey. Yeah. I mean, we had some interesting results, I would say. I mean, the salaries were up and down. Chace, you’ve seen the results. What do you think about this? How do you feel about the numbers?

Chace Torres:

I think the numbers are reflective of just where we currently are in the field in general and, of course, with the economy, COVID, everything all wrapped up into one. 2021 was just a continuation of what we’ve experienced with wage disparity, supply chain issues, you name it. It’s been brutal for everybody. But there was some increases nationwide for some of the levels of biomed, which is always good to see.

Chace Torres:

Like I said, I think the numbers are just reflective of where we currently are at, but the fact that we still went up a little bit is promising.

Keri Stephens:

Yeah. What I thought was really interesting was the disparities, like you mentioned. In the south, for instance, the salaries a lot of them were up more than other parts of the country. That was one of the biggest takeaways I had was just there seems to be what I call in the article “A southern boom.” These salaries are higher there. Why do you think that is?

Chace Torres:

I would probably say it’s to consider them in the south myself.

Keri Stephens:

Right.

Chace Torres:

I would say it’s probably to adjust to inflation. We’ve had record high inflation over the past year. I think it jumps from what your magazine cited, 7% in 2021. We’re already looking at … I think the Fed actually annotated, there’s going to be six separate times in which the inflation present rates might go up. It’s indicative of that. I also think that, usually, just in my experience the wages for, at least in Texas, they tend to acclimate to the rest of the country after everybody has already raised there.

Chace Torres:

It could have just been cost of living adjustments and everything to just catching up with the rest of the country. Yep. That’s pretty much where I think it might be.

Keri Stephens:

Yeah. It is interesting you mentioned the inflation aspect, because what we wrote about was how the inflation is the highest it’s been since 1982. Forty years we’ve had the highest inflation. But I mean, looking at the salaries, I’ve the data up right now. I mean, nationwide, BMET 1s, their salaries only rose $300 year over year in 2021 despite this inflation. BMET 2s, okay, they saw a $6,000 increase, which is good. BMET 3s, a $4,000 increase.

Keri Stephens:

The clinical engineer title, though they actually saw their salaries go down $500 a year, which despite this inflation, the radiologist equipment specialists also saw their salaries go down $200 despite the inflation, and the managers, yeah. The average salary for managers nationwide, 2020 was 103,300. 2021, it was 99,800. I mean, still a very good salary, but again, was not on par with the inflation.

Keri Stephens:

The directors executives, okay, so they saw a bit of an increase, $2,000 though. Again, that’s not a big jump compared to at the 7% inflation. That part wasn’t reflected in the industry. Another thing I thought was really interesting, and I would love to hear your take as a biomed. But most workers said they were very … had very excessive or heavy workloads, the vast majority. Only 2% of the respondents characterize their workloads as light. I mean, that workloads are heavy and you can talk about that …

Chace Torres:

You’re preaching to the choir, considering I’m in field service. Field service is typically heavy workload compared to in-house hospital, just because we have a vaster reach we have to cover. There’s always the notion of burnout, and relocation, and retention, and everything, that’s all mixed up into it. But I think a … at least for me, in my experience, what I’ve had over the past couple years, especially dealing with COVID, it’s been high gear, nonstop.

Chace Torres:

Either hospitals are requiring more and more service, either repair-wise, or … It’s been crazy, especially with the ventilators as well. Trying to optimize care for treating COVID patients, like I said, I think is made a boom, and requiring the biomed’s assistance a lot more. That’s probably helped contribute to being … I wouldn’t call it overworked, but we’ve been busy.

Keri Stephens:

Yeah.

Chace Torres:

But the good thing is if you also look at the survey, majority of people also get bonus pay and overtime, and overtime is nice.

Keri Stephens:

The tuition reimbursement, we saw some. All of that definitely goes into play. It’s not just the straight numbers that you’re seeing.

Chace Torres:

Well, speaking of tuition reimbursement, I saw actually on your survey as well that the percentage of respondents who said they’re pursuing actively formal education and it was 82% were saying “No.” If you’re biomed and you’re not continuing your education, I want you to just think about it. This is another tool in your pocket to allow you to increase your wage, but also elevate your level of service you could provide for patient safety, that includes going out getting your AAMI certifications, your CBET for your newer guys to come at the CHTM, and then go and get your degrees, bachelor’s, master’s, what have you.

Chace Torres:

It’s only going to help your career. Like I said, you’ll benefit from it. I would like to see the 82% go down next year. Let’s get on that people.

Keri Stephens:

I love that. I’m really glad you touched on that, because it’s a number that’s been really consistent year over year. Personally, I’ve been doing the survey for six years. I mean, really, the number of respondents pursuing for education really hasn’t changed year over year. It’s always in that 80 something they’re saying you’re not. I love hearing that. I think that’s great that you’re promoting that.

Keri Stephens:

But another thing that I thought was interesting about the survey, even though these salaries, some are complaining, they’re not going up as much as they would want and that they are feeling overworked. Most people are really likely to promote the HTM profession to other. Forty-three percent of respondents said they were very likely. Twenty-eight percent said they were likely. Nineteen percent said they were somewhat likely. Only 10% of people said they were somewhat unlikely or very unlikely. Even though …

Chace Torres:

They’re the overworked ones,

Keri Stephens:

Yeah. They’re overworked. But they want to promote this. Can you talk about that and just why? You love what you do and what you would tell someone that was considering coming into this field?

Chace Torres:

First off the number of respondents that have said that they’re either likely, very likely to recommend the field, if that doesn’t tell you that this is a good field, I don’t know what it is that 60%, 70% say, “Yeah, get into this field.” There’s a reason for that. Of course, it’s challenging. You always have to learn new things. You always have to adapt mold. The impact is, I think what really drives most of us in the field, considering that day in, day out what you’re doing is actively affecting patient care, patient safety.

Chace Torres:

It takes a special person to pursue this line of work, because obviously, we’re not in it for plethora of cash. I mean, yeah, I’m always going to advocate that the biomed should get paid more for what we have to learn, what we have to experience. I will continue pursuing that. But like I said, the main aspect of what makes the job so special is just we have a hand in everything.

Chace Torres:

Essentially we’ve been called the ninja of the hospital or the unsung hero because a lot of times patients and general staff don’t know that we exist, simply because we’re working in conjunction with the hospital professionals as making sure that their equipments up and running that they don’t have to cancel cases or for our specialty guys out there ensuring that really specific proprietary modalities are up and running like CTs, MRIs so that the hospital is constantly able to provide that care.

Chace Torres:

It’s a quintessential aspect of the hospital realm that really makes it worth it. I think that everybody that has responded to the survey in such a manner is basically echoing what I’m saying.

Keri Stephens:

Yeah. The part that you mentioned about people not knowing the field exists, that’s something we saw, written about heavily in the comment section. People were constantly saying that that is one of the biggest issues they’re dealing with that people just don’t know the biomed field exists. Because there’s a lot of people in the industry retiring that there’s not that strong pipeline of talent coming in, because it’s a lack of awareness about the profession as a whole.

Keri Stephens:

Can you talk about that? I know you’re doing a ton to promote this profession. I think it’s amazing, but … You are.

Chace Torres:

I always got the wheels turning.

Keri Stephens:

Yeah.

Chace Torres:

First thing that comes to mind, when you talk about retirement, I know we had seen from the numbers that some people have retired, which we … Our population is, I think, majority of it being male and also over 50 years old is going to lead to more retirements within the next coming years. A lot of the respondents are at least the numbers point to that there’s a lack of upward mobility, meaning there’s not too many opportunities for technicians probably within my space have been in somewhere 10, 15 years or so.

Chace Torres:

They don’t have the opportunities to elevate into that management or director position. At least in my experience, from what I’ve seen, on the job market, and I’ve heard this from several colleagues as well. Once our senior directors and everything they retire, a lot of facilities don’t really want to invest in a younger biomed, that’s … Now when I say younger, like I said, I’m talking about people in my area, that 10, 15 years end of career field.

Chace Torres:

But they typically move towards someone that is just around where the person retired at. They’ll hire them. They’ll be in for maybe another, I don’t know, three, five years, and then they’ll retire. It’s like a short cycle of our older population in the field, which, obviously, you have to have the credentials to do this job. That could be another aspect of this. I’m just not seeing.

Chace Torres:

But I think the field in general, we need to do a better job of uplifting your technicians below you. This even goes for people in the middle of the pack that have been in 8, 10, 12 years work on elevating your biomed one, your entry graduate, your interns, because they’re the future. I know, you had spoken up to with the fact that a lot of people don’t know we exists. That’s why my podcast exists.

Chace Torres:

That’s why AAMI is pushing so hard to reach out to high school students, the HTM in the box, that apprenticeship programs. We’re trying to funnel in new blood into the field, because it’s desperately needed, especially within the next couple years. That the fact that we need over 5,000, 6,000 within the next few years, and those numbers aren’t looking pretty good right now. That speaks multitudes of where we currently stand.

Keri Stephens:

Right.

Chace Torres:

If anything can be improved on to the field that’s immediate, obviously, yes, everybody wants to wait, just go out. But we also need to elevate the next generation to move in.

Keri Stephens:

You did touch on, yes, what AAMI is doing and how else can we elevate the next generation? What are some other steps you think that we’re not thinking of or … I mean, AAMI is doing a ton, and we have to give him credit because they’re working really hard to prevent this labor shortage. But I mean, what else can be done?

Chace Torres:

Well, I just recently interviewed Danielle and we spoke on a couple things. One thing that they’re going to do especially for this year at the AAMI Expo is they are going to have an actual presentation with different modalities of medical devices available. They’re actually going to bring in high school students to check out the equipment. We’re going to have different presenters. Yours truly should be there as well, if everything links up correctly.

Keri Stephens:

Nice.

Chace Torres:

That’s just, I think, a big part of this, obviously, we all want social media and the general population to be aware through whatever engagement we can have on the internet of biomed. But I think the grassroots, local reach out is a good way to start. Like I said that AAMI provided that information to the field, so that way they can take that presentation into any school and reach out to the younger population.

Chace Torres:

I’m actually going to be going to David Braeutigam’s college this Thursday. I’m going to speak with the students there. Actually going to do a little on the road show with them and just talk about why they wanted to get into the field and inspired them, pick their minds, and see how we could possibly increase our engagement with the younger population, because this isn’t going away.

Keri Stephens:

Right. I mean, it’s seen throughout the medical field. It’s not just biomeds there with an impending labor shortage, it’s everywhere.

Chace Torres:

Nurses, specially.

Keri Stephens:

Nurses, yeah, for sure. It’s …

Chace Torres:

Nurses for what you do.

Keri Stephens:

Thank you. Yeah. Well, I think it’s interesting, too, because the pandemic really highlighted so much of the medical community, but it doesn’t seem to have affected the shortage, or maybe it’s made it worse. People have left the field due to that.

Chace Torres:

Well, I can’t speak for other professions. But, I mean, I do have friends that are nurses and a lot of it is the pandemic has played such a huge impact on their decisions. I mean, having to work nonstop and the conditions they had with no value in what they were doing, besides getting the pat on the back. I think that this turned a lot of them off of it. That’s why the traveling nurse has really benefited through the COVID dilemma right now.

Chace Torres:

As for biomeds, I mean, it’s notorious. I mean, we’ve all discussed that there’s always a retention issue when it comes to holding on to our staff within our hospitals and our ISOs. That simply, I think it’s a matter of wages, cost of living, et cetera. It could be work environment. There’s always a plethora of conditions that actually affects what a person decides to stay with the company or not.

Keri Stephens:

Yeah. Part of this survey, too, that we all … We did touch on COVID. We asked respondents, “How was COVID affected operations at your facility? Do you think these changes are here to stay?” We got some interesting responses. I mean, I’m going to read some. One person said, “More virtual meetings than ever before. Yes, they’re here to stay. There should be more remote HTM roles when needed to bridge certain IT related tasks.” Okay. What do you think about that?

Chace Torres:

I mean, I do believe that there has been a culture shift when it comes to engagement through video calls and everything, and they have their place. But being biomeds, at least, a lot of what we can do is at the facilities.

Keri Stephens:

Right.

Chace Torres:

From IT, cybersecurity perspective, I mean, there can be some things that we can facilitate through video calls, et cetera. Sometimes, I could even walk through troubleshooting with a clinician on a piece of equipment through a video call. But at least for our field, because I haven’t been sitting at home every day on doing video calls. I’ve been out running here and there. I don’t think it’s going to affect us so much.

Chace Torres:

I think it’s more going to be for the senior professionals or, of course, IT can work on a computer because that’s where they’re at. They’re on the computer. I think it’s going to be on a case-by-case basis, I believe.

Keri Stephens:

Okay. I’m really glad you mentioned cybersecurity, because that was something we heard a lot about in the survey, people are very concerned about cybersecurity, which, I mean, it’s something 24×7 covers all the time, cybersecurity. In my opinion, I mean, obviously, you know a lot more than me. But I would say that’s one of the top issues that it’s affecting the field right now.

Keri Stephens:

Can you talk about that, because that was something people really, really said? I mean, one of the questions we had was, what are the top issues affecting the field and beyond the rights repair, I would say cybersecurity was … Those two were the top two.

Chace Torres:

Well, cybersecurity has been a problem. But I think it’s become more prevalent to everybody’s eye because of the multitude of ransomware attacks have been occurring.

Keri Stephens:

Right

Chace Torres:

Like I said, it’s been around. It’s just a matter of facilities implementing those closing the loopholes. I mean, in general medical devices aren’t typical endpoints, like laptops or other devices on the network that hospitals have to deal with. A lot of them have to deal with their own proprietary software.

Chace Torres:

I mean, this goes back to where IT and biomed need to work together, because IT, they’re not familiar with navigating medical devices, or familiar with navigating general network infrastructures. That’s where I think we need to do a better job as the biomeds to learn to communicate within their language, and also with the conditions and facilitate actual objectives to close these loopholes that are allowing the various actors to put our hospitals in such stray taking out systems that either have to turn away patient care or cost of facility money.

Chace Torres:

I mean, a lot of facilities are already feeling the impact from COVID, and closures and everything else. This is just another cherry on top that’s just making it more difficult. Like I said, it’s been around. I think it’s the scope of you on IT and biomed working together is just going to become even more important just because cybersecurity is starting to impact medical device safety across the general spectrum.

Chace Torres:

It’s becoming … There’s eyesight on it now. Which is good, the industry is aware of it. We have more availability of companies providing cybersecurity measures, which is fantastic. My only thing is I hope that our OEMs are taking account of what’s going on right now, and either implements better security practices and their medical devices, or at least allow our hospital systems, our biomeds to better equip them so that they can protect themselves from these ransomware attacks.

Keri Stephens:

Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Then I also want you to talk about the right to repair, which people also mentioned a lot in the survey.

Chace Torres:

Well, I’m not going to get too graphic, because I’ve made my stance on right to repair very prevalent in a past episode. But like I said, I am speaking from the HTM side. Let me preface this by saying I absolutely do not hold any forfeiture, or holding back of critical parts, manuals, service keys, passwords against any of the actual field technicians, OEM technicians, because they’re doing their job.

Chace Torres:

They’re just as much a part of our ecosystem as we are part of theirs. But there’s been multiple attempts to bridge the gap between the OEM and the biomed, in order to facilitate patient care. Now, depending on the area you’re in, this is going to hold true more than for others.

Chace Torres:

But what I have experienced when it comes to a lot of these rural hospitals or facilities that aren’t under the OEM scope, per se, or aren’t under warranty obligation, if a piece of equipment goes down, a critical piece of equipment, whether surgical, radioed graphical, and CT, what have you, if this goes down, and the part is not available, they either have to spend exorbitant amount of money because there was no other option and the unit’s already down.

Chace Torres:

You’re maximizing cost, you’re maximizing time, and both of these do not bode well for the patient or the facility. I would surely hope that within the future and hopefully near future that we come to some agreement. I mean, there’s been … I would argue to say FUD arguments when it comes to saying that allowing biomeds, not OEM affiliated to work on these proprietary piece of equipment is going to danger patient safety.

Chace Torres:

My kickback to that is we are out here servicing life-saving critical equipment day in, day out already. Your special proprietary piece of equipment is not so special that we cannot learn it and surface it. All you’re doing is just protecting your IP. You’re protecting your investment and your stakeholders. I understand you’re a business and that’s vital.

Chace Torres:

But I just hope that at the very least, provide training or provide some kind of middle ground to where that we can optimize patient care, because at the end of the day, this is hurting the patient and the facility. That’s what the biomed’s here for. We’re here to provide for them. We’re not asking because this is benefiting us in any kind of way.

Keri Stephens:

Absolutely. Yeah. I think you have a really good point. To end this out, I want you to talk about why you would encourage people to take a survey after every year and what this survey you think means to the biomed community. Because to us, I would say it’s the most important thing we do. Personally, I think it’s the most important thing 24×7 does every year is has this survey. What does it mean to you and the field and your colleagues?

Chace Torres:

Well, ever since I’ve gotten into the civilian aspect of the field, I would say it’s been enlightening to say the least. By you conducting a survey, it allows transparency and provides the opportunity for equal pay across the range of the United States. This can literally be used to negotiate fair pay for everybody. A colleague can look at the survey, see what they’re getting paid, take this HTM salary survey, and say, “Hey, the same range of pay within my area is getting this and I am nowhere near this, or what do I need to do to facilitate getting this pay?”

Chace Torres:

At the very least, it’s going to open the conversation for them to give you, “Hey, we need you to do this, this and this.” Once you do that, then you just increase your pay. If they don’t want to accommodate that, then at that point, I would suggest, either accepting it or looking for other opportunities that will give you what you feel valued. The survey has been integral and really providing something that we can stand on that gives us a level of, I would say, quality when it comes to pay in general.

Chace Torres:

It’s something very crucial that everybody needs to fill out. Because if we didn’t have the survey, what are we going off of? I mean, besides the general salary increases, decreases for each level of biomed, it’s also given us demographics where we stand because of the salary. We know what other biomed in the field are thinking. What are key issues within our field? What are the demographics in our field?

Chace Torres:

This is really giving light to not just salary disparities, but it’s given light to everything that we need to address within the field. Now, if that’s not important enough to you to fill it out, then I don’t know what it is. Because at the end of the day, this is what we need to improve … to make everybody happy and to raise that more likely to recommend other people to get into the field.

Keri Stephens:

Thank you. Yeah. We encourage everyone. We’ll start collecting data for 2022 salary survey in probably late November. We encourage you to fill that out. I know that there’s plenty of time ahead. But it’s so important that everyone in the field really gets behind the survey because we want to have the most accurate data for you all. Just to promote the field as best as possible.

Keri Stephens:

Well, thank you, Chace. We’re going to end this now. But can you tell everyone where to find you on social media?

Chace Torres:

The Bearded Biomed is available on all listening platforms. You can reach out directly to the Facebook page, got Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, everywhere. You look for me, you will find me. We just launched our merch store so check that out, too.

Keri Stephens:

Awesome. Thank you. Well, this is Keri Stephens to the MEDQOR Podcast Network. Bye, everyone.

Chace Torres:

Take care.