On-Call Status
A valuable perk in any employment package is not having on-call responsibilities. Some respondents admitted to taking a less-than-desirable salary because the position did not involve any on-call or weekend time.

A quarter of our respondents said they take call, but less than half that group (only 38%) actually gets paid for it.

In our 2005 survey, we saw higher salaries for NPs who take call - showing that NPs were getting paid for it somewhere. This year's results showed fairly comparative salaries for both groups: $81,207 for those with no call responsibilities and just $734 more for NPs who do take call ($81,941).

"I'm not sure if employers take it for granted or if they just feel as though it's part of your responsibility as a provider in the practice," said Lareshia Slade, a pediatric NP in Fayetteville, N.C. "Call duty is just included in my salary package, but it hasn't affected my satisfaction with my job."

Although salary comparisons aren't encouraging, many respondents said that on-call time was compensated with extra time off instead of money.

"Taking call is not a really big deal to me. In dermatology we don't get many calls, and most calls are medication refills," said Holly Nichols, an NP in Wichita, Kan. "And I do get every Tuesday afternoon off for the weekends I cover call, so I would say it evens out in the wash."

One respondent got creative about on-call compensation when contract renegotiation came around ? she received additional continuing education funds in lieu of being directly compensated.

The 'Average' NP
In the 2007 survey, we asked for the first time about workplace issues not directly related to compensation. As shown Table 11, the average survey respondent has a master's degree and holds a single NP certification, typically in family practice. She's 46 years old, has worked as an NP between 6 and 10 years and is employed full time as a family nurse practitioner in a family practice or hospital setting. She reports to a physician, doesn't take call, and writes more than 20 prescriptions each week. She believes there are sufficient job opportunities for nurse practitioners and is very satisfied with her job.

Survey Methods
ADVANCE for Nurse Practitioners published the questionnaire for its sixth national salary survey in the July, August, September and October 2007 issues of the journal and online. A record 6,162 nurse practitioners completed to the survey.

To ensure the accuracy and validity of our data, ADVANCE did not tabulate any surveys filled out by respondents who were not nurse practitioners, such as clinical nurse specialists or nurse midwives who were not also certified as nurse practitioners. To further ensure that average salaries were calculated accurately, we averaged the salaries of full-time and part-time nurse practitioners separately.

Ronald Wasserstein, executive director of the American Statistical Association, confirmed the validity of our survey methods.

Jill Rollet is the managing editor. Reach her at jrollet@merion.com. Sarah Lebo is the associate editor.