Looking at Medicare physician payment data, it would appear that oncologists were among the highest paid specialists in 2013. But a closer look reveals that much of the money going to oncologists is used to cover the cost of administered drugs.
This chart shows the average total payment for every medical specialty along with the average payment for drugs, which is a subset of the total payment.
The drug payment figures were broken out for the first time in the physician payment data for 2013 released last week.
Individual payment totals to physicians can be tracked by specialty and location using Modern Healthcare's Medicare payment data tool.
