Free-Standing Birth Center Salary?

**LibraSunCNM, BSN, MSN, CNM** · Feb 27, 2021

If you are looking to maximize your salary to pay off student loans, a FSBC is probably not the way to go. The highest salaries will be in private practice, usually with MDs, and require working like 50-60 hours a week, if not more, for a salary of 100-150k/year. I work at a FSBC and the new grad salary for full time is 96k/year. This is on the high end, we are actually employed by our collaborating medical center. At smaller FSBCs, I would expect new grad pay to be around 80k/yr. This is just my anecdotal observation, I'm sure there are outliers out there.

aspiringcnm3, RN · Feb 27, 2021

4 hours ago, LibraSunCNM said:

If you are looking to maximize your salary to pay off student loans, a FSBC is probably not the way to go. The highest salaries will be in private practice, usually with MDs, and require working like 50-60 hours a week, if not more, for a salary of 100-150k/year. I work at a FSBC and the new grad salary for full time is 96k/year. This is on the high end, we are actually employed by our collaborating medical center. At smaller FSBCs, I would expect new grad pay to be around 80k/yr. This is just my anecdotal observation, I'm sure there are outliers out there.

Thank you so much for this reply!! I recognize it may vary but would you mind sharing what your schedule is like at a FSBC? Have you ever worked elsewhere? Do you feel like the quality of life or the type of work makes up for the relatively lesser pay?

**LibraSunCNM, BSN, MSN, CNM** · Feb 27, 2021

Right now I am actually per diem so I only work about 12-20 hours per week. Normally our 1.0 FTEs work about 6 days of clinic and 11 12-hour shifts of on call per month. Our volume is such that on a night call, you don't get called in at all about 20% of the time. It works out to about a 40 hour work week for the full time midwives. I used to work at a hospital where we did 2 8 hour days in the clinic and 2 12-hour shifts on L&D (one night, one day) per week, so also 40 hours. The difference was that it was shift work, so you went in no matter what, rather than a private practice call model. I couldn't handle the quality of life at a busier MD led practice where you generally have 15 minute appointment slots per patient in the clinic, and are working like an animal on L&D with no time to spend with your patients in labor. I am, however, extremely privileged in that my spouse makes significantly more money than me, so I have the flexibility to do what I enjoy best.

rebecuna, MSN, RN, CNM · Mar 26, 2021

On 2/27/2021 at 5:31 PM, LibraSunCNM said:

Right now I am actually per diem so I only work about 12-20 hours per week....I am, however, extremely privileged in that my spouse makes significantly more money than me, so I have the flexibility to do what I enjoy best.

Can you say more about your per diem job? Do you have regular hours or are you called in to cover sick calls/vacation/etc? Do you have any continuity with patients or are you really just filling in? Do you do any call?

**LibraSunCNM, BSN, MSN, CNM** · Mar 26, 2021

1 hour ago, rebecuna said:

Can you say more about your per diem job? Do you have regular hours or are you called in to cover sick calls/vacation/etc? Do you have any continuity with patients or are you really just filling in? Do you do any call?

They schedule me basically for however many hours I want per month, and the lead midwife lets me know which months they have greater needs because of vacations, maternity leaves, etc. and lets me know how many hours I could have if I wanted them. We don't have continuity with clinic patients as a rule, all the patients see all the midwives, so when I do clinic or call (I do both, although more call than clinic) it's not like I'm "filling in" for the patient's "regular" midwife. I'm going to go back to my regular 0.75 FTE schedule in the fall, when my son will be over a year old and start part-time daycare.