The vast majority of doctors (92%) consider the official statistics of the Ministry of Health and Rosstat on average salaries not reliable, according to an online survey by the RNC Pharma analyst company and the Doktor Na Rabote (Doctor at Work) social media service for doctors. Around 37% of the respondents consider the official statistics to be completely unreliable, believing that the figures provided by Ministry of Health are “several times” higher than the real ones.

Most of the respondents (43%) said that the real income is at least two times as low as the official statistics. Another 13% see less significant discrepancies with the official figures (by a couple tens of percent). Such discrepancies may be explained by the fact that the respondents do not take into account personal income tax.

At the same time, many spoke about the fact that doctors often work at 1.75 or 2 salary rates, including additional shifts, which may reduce the discrepancies to a couple tens of percent.

How different are the official statistics of the Ministry of Health and Rosstat on the average salaries of doctors from your real income? (single answer question)

The answers also depended on the regions. 82% of the doctors working in Moscow and St. Petersburg consider the data provided by the Ministry of Health to be unreliable (12% do not), while it is 95% for the doctors from other regions (against 3%). The explanation to these discrepancies would be purely mathematical, since the average salaries in Moscow and St. Petersburg are initially higher and hence closer to the statistics by the Ministry of Health.

How different are the official statistics of the Ministry of Health and Rosstat on the average salaries of doctors from your real income? Regional differences (single answer question)