Kentucky — a state with exactly one open Pulmonary Critical Care listing — is paying more than New York, which has nine. That is the entire market in a single sentence, but the rest of the data is worth your time. Across the country, 36 listings are currently live for physicians who specialize in keeping the sickest patients breathing (and, when necessary, deciding who gets the last ICU bed). The compensation spread runs from $300,000 to $450,000. The thesis: in Pulmonary Critical Care, scarcity pays better than density, and the busiest markets are quietly the worst-compensated.
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The Pulmonary Critical Care Job Market at a Glance

Total listings: 36
Listings with disclosed salary: 6
Full national range: $300,000 – $450,000
National average range: $366,667 – $391,667

Six disclosed salaries out of thirty-six listings is a thin slice of transparency, but the slice is informative. The floor sits at $300,000 (Long Island, which we will revisit). The ceiling sits at $450,000 (Kentucky, which we will also revisit). Everything else clusters in a narrow $25,000-wide average band, which is unusual for a specialty that routinely runs codes at 3 a.m.

States represented in the data: New York, Indiana, Texas, Florida, Missouri, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, Utah, Arizona, Illinois, Kentucky, Iowa, and Connecticut.

Eighteen states, thirty-six jobs, and one very lucky physician in Louisville-or-thereabouts.
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How States Stack Up

Overperformers:

• Kentucky — A single listing at $450,000, which is the national ceiling. One job, one number, top of the leaderboard.
• Illinois — $350,000 to $425,000 across three listings, the rare state offering both volume and a respectable upper bound.
• Indiana — One disclosed salary at $400,000 (Indianapolis), comfortably above the national average high.

Near-average:

• Illinois again straddles the national average and functions as the market’s honest mirror.

Underperformers:

• New York — $333,333 to $358,333 average across three disclosed listings, the lowest documented pay in the country despite leading on volume.

Volume leaders: New York (9), then Texas, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Illinois tied at 3, followed by Florida and Indiana at 2. New York leads on jobs and trails on pay. Kentucky trails on jobs and leads on pay. The market is not subtle.
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What This Means If You’re a Physician

If your priority is maximum compensation: Kentucky’s $450,000 listing is the highest-paying Pulmonary Critical Care role in the national dataset. Indianapolis, Indiana follows at $400,000 annually. Both are full-time, annual-salary roles with standard physician employment structures.

If your priority is maximum optionality: New York offers 9 listings, the most in the country. You will have choices. You will not have the highest pay (the Long Island floor starts at $300,000, which is roughly $150,000 below Kentucky for the same credentials and arguably more traffic).

If your priority is balance: Illinois and Indiana are the sensible picks — competitive salaries, multiple or at least visible openings, and cost-of-living profiles that do not require a Manhattan-sized asterisk.

The cost-of-living mismatch worth scrutinizing: Long Island at $300,000 versus Louisville-tier Kentucky at $450,000. Same specialty. Different planet.
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What This Means If You’re a Recruiter

Salary transparency rate: 6 of 36 listings, or 16.7%. That is low. Candidates evaluating this specialty are making decisions on less than one-fifth of the available data, which means the listings that do disclose compensation are doing disproportionate work shaping expectations.

Pipeline implication: candidates will anchor to the visible numbers — $450,000 in Kentucky, $400,000 in Indianapolis — and assume the undisclosed roles are hiding something. Sometimes they are.

Volume-pay misalignment is most acute in New York, where 9 listings compete for attention while disclosed pay sits below the national average. Recruiters placing in NY metros will need to lead with academic affiliation, subspecialty scope, case mix, or lifestyle — because the compensation line will not carry the pitch on its own.
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What’s Driving the Numbers

Scarcity is pricing itself in. Kentucky has one listing and the highest salary in the country. Indiana has two listings and the second-highest disclosed figure. States with thin Pulmonary Critical Care coverage appear to be paying a premium to attract dual-boarded physicians who can run both a pulmonary clinic and an ICU. The math rewards the willing.

Density is compressing the floor. New York’s 9 listings and sub-average pay suggest that high-volume urban markets are leaning on location, prestige, and academic affiliation as substitutes for cash. It works on some candidates. It does not work on all of them.

The volume-pay relationship is inverted. In most specialties, high-listing states cluster near or above the national average. Here, the volume leader is the pay laggard, and the pay leader has a single job. This is not noise — it is the defining feature of the current Pulmonary Critical Care market.

Transparency is the quiet constraint. With only 16.7% of listings disclosing salary, candidates are negotiating against shadows. Employers willing to publish numbers — even average ones — will out-recruit silent competitors.

The Bottom Line

Pulmonary Critical Care in 2026 is a small, structurally inverted market where the loudest state on volume is the quietest on pay, and a single Kentucky listing is currently outperforming the entire Northeast. Physicians who can tolerate geographic flexibility are looking at a $150,000 swing for the same credentials. Recruiters working dense urban markets will need a story that is not a number.

In Pulmonary Critical Care, the money is wherever the patients are sick and the physicians are scarce — which, this quarter, means Kentucky.
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Salary data based on 6 listings with disclosed compensation. Figures may reflect part-time or specialized roles. This report is informational and should not replace professional judgment or financial planning.