Educational Costs Expended and Career Incomes in Advanced Healthcare Professions.

The financial desirability of dollar/time investments in postbaccalaureate healthcare professional education is needed. We therefore compared postbaccalaureate educational costs and career earnings for nurse anesthetists, eight other advanced degree, nonphysician professions, and 14 physician specialties with internal rate of return (IRR) and net present value (NPV) analysis. The IRR and NPV integrated educational costs (tuition, finance charges, lost salary opportunity costs), and career earnings using U.S. Bureau of Labor and Medscape 2022 Physician Compensation Report data. Costs were discounted to 2022 U.S. real dollars using the 3.97% 50-year, U.S. average inflation rate. Annual IRRs for educational investment were 1) hospital CEOs = 48.8%; 2) managed care finance directors = 48.2%; 3) Doctors of Nurse Anesthesia Practice = 26.0%; 4) specialist physicians = 20.3%; 5) primary care physicians = 19.2%; 6) Doctors of Physical Therapy = 18.8%; 7) healthcare attorneys = 18.4%; 8) Doctors of Dental Surgery (dentists) = 18.1%; 9) Doctors of Pharmacy = 17.2%; and 10) Advanced Nurse Practitioners = 10.8%. Considering the educational money/time invested for career monetary returns, the financial desirability of nurse anesthetist and nonphysician, healthcare executive education exceeded that of physicians. Lifetime earnings for nurse anesthetists exceeded those of Doctors of Dental Surgery (Doctors of Dental Medicine), Doctors of Pharmacy, Doctors of Physical Therapy, managed care MBAs, biomedical engineers, healthcare attorneys, and Advanced Nurse Practitioners.