Looking for cardiac sonographer salary? Read on, this article looks at the present and past salaries in cardiac sonography jobs?

What is cardiac sonography?

Cardiac sonography is more popularly known as echocardiography. It is also known by another more self-explanatory term cardiac ultrasound technology. Cardiac sonography is the technique of using an ultrasound equipment (echocardiogram) to study the anatomy and function of the heart. Cardiac sonography is the most widely used technique in the diagnosis of heart ailments.

Cardiac sonographer

Cardiac sonographers are medical sonographers specialized in using echocardiogram. Similar to how medical sonographers would use ultrasound to view a fetus, cardiac sonographers use ultrasound to examine and evaluate the heart. Typically cardiac sonography gives an idea of heart chamber sizes, arrangement of the parts of the heart, functioning of the valves and muscles and blood flow. Cardiac sonographers are not expected to make diagnoses, but they report their findings to the cardiologist for further analysis and diagnosis.

Cardiac sonographers find employment in hospitals, diagnostic laboratories and physicians’ offices with the former accounting for over 80% of all jobs. Categorized with other allied health occupations, the job traditionally required an associate’s degree in echocardiography (or cardiac sonography) and passing a national accreditation examination. With the role of the cardiac sonographer becoming more important, and field getting more advanced and complicated, some employers are preferring a bachelor’s degree as the education requirement for cardiac sonographers. Needless to say, the level of education is a major fact that determines cardiac sonographer salary.

Most schools in the United States, that offer cardiac sonography training have different programs available to students. The basic certificate level program can be completed in about twelve (12) months allowing the candidate to make a relatively quick entrance into their chosen career. Most commonly, the preferred education for those pursuing the cardiac sonographer profession is the two-year associate’s degree. Some students may choose to pursue a full four-year degree in order to allow them to work at more advanced levels. Cardiac sonographers with four-year degrees earn the highest salary in this profession.

Cardiac Sonographer Salary

Let’s now look at the wages of cardiac sonographers. The Bureau of Labor Statististcs (BLS) classifies cardiac sonographers as cardiovascular technologists. While this is a broad term that subsumes several specialities in the field of cardiovascular diagnosis and management, the wages are similar. The following table gives the trend in salary of cardiovascular sonographers from 1999 to 2010 as per the BLS.

As can be seen a cardiac sonographer currently earns $48,720. This of course the average and entry level cardiac sonographers earn lower. The mean hourly wage is $23.75. If we look at the trend the mean annual salary of cardiac sonographers went up over 50% during the period under reference.

Factors determining salary

It is held that cardiac sonographer salaries will remain firm for the next ten years at least due to a variety of market factors that cause an increase in their demand. These include a lower availability of primary physicians, increasing incidence of heart ailments in the population and higher awareness about heart diseases and the need for regular check-up. Given all these, what are the other factors that determine an individual cardiac sonographer’s salary? We have already discussed the first and most important factor, which is, the educational qualification. The second factor is the experience. As you log in more years of professional work, your salary too goes up proportionately. It is seen that the cardiac sonographer salary doubles in about eight years. It is also seen that hospitals pay comparatively less than doctor’s offices and diagnostic laboratories. So the place of work is another fact that determines the salary of cardiac sonographers.