Rich in Rewards

Super chef Emeril Lagasse cooks up $7.2 million annually. Tom Cruise made a reported $65 million on Mission Impossible 2. And Alex Rodriguez of the Texas Rangers tops Major League Baseball’s salary roster at a nifty $22 million.

So how does pay for the CEO of a home medical equipment business stack up? That average annual bank deposit is a tad more modest at $82,416. In fact, the highest single income reported in our 2003 Salary Survey, HomeCare’s eighth annual provider compensation study, was $250,000.

Though salaries among HME workers may be slightly below that of movie stars and baseball’s best, they are steady. That counts as good in an employment economy where layoffs are a matter of course and existing salaries are being cut. In fact, the average salary across 15 HME job titles for the respondents participating in our survey is a healthy $50,038.

That puts these HME wage earners ahead of teachers, whose average salary was $44,400 last year; marine biologists, who, despite the dangers of the deep, take home $35,000; new commercial pilots, who, in a profession where pay is based on seniority, begin at $28,000; and news anchors, who, with the majority of the jobs located in small markets, average $47,000 per year.

Even though the country can’t seem to shake off its financial slump, more than 80 percent of HME companies gave their employees raises in the 12 months preceding our survey. At an average 6.4 percent, most of those increases are well over the 3.6 percent reported by Mercer Human Resource Consulting as the standard raise that 1,700 U.S. employers will give this year.

Despite its association with the larger health care industry, which remains somewhat recession-proof, the HME salary outlook may not always be as solid. In last month’s HomeCare Web poll, 52 percent of the respondents said they would freeze employees’ pay if Congress enacts a CPI freeze on DME reimbursement (under consideration as part of Medicare reform). Another 18 percent said they might take such a measure.

But for now, though you’re not taking home a celebrity’s paycheck, you could be making more than those who work among the stars — literally. According to salary.com, entry-level rocket scientists start out at $40,000 a year.