Physician Assistant Salary in Indiana 2026,
$132,050 Median | BLS Data by City

Indiana physician assistants earn a median $132,050 a year, $63.49 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $123,220 and $166,230 and a full range of $105,810 to $196,280. That is 2.8% below the $135,880 national median, though the Indiana upper tail is unusually strong.

Lafayette-West Lafayette at $133,060, then Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood at $131,950, Fort Wayne at $131,400, South Bend-Mishawaka at $129,620 and Columbus at $124,460. The spread is under nine thousand dollars, and in a market this small the specialty and the employer explain far more of an individual's pay than the metro does.

Yes. Indiana licenses PAs through the Physician Assistant Committee working with the Medical Licensing Board, and requires a collaborative agreement with a supervising physician within which prescriptive authority, including controlled substances, is exercised. Having a dedicated committee inside the licensing structure means the profession's rules are reviewed by physician assistants as well as physicians.

Surgical subspecialties — particularly orthopaedics and cardiothoracic surgery around the Indianapolis academic and specialty centres — along with high-acuity emergency medicine and procedural practice. Those roles populate the $166,230 seventy-fifth percentile and the $196,280 ninetieth. Primary care sits at or below the $132,050 median even with a full panel.

A flat 3.05% state income tax that does not rise with income — a genuine advantage at this earnings level — plus a county income tax charged on the county where you live. County rates vary by more than the state rate itself, so at a $132,050 salary the residence county is worth real money annually.

Because it uses nurse practitioners instead. Indiana employs about 7,450 nurse practitioners against roughly 2,110 physician assistants, more than three to one, and the location quotients tell the same story — 1.12 for nurse practitioners against 0.63 for PAs. Both professions operate under similar collaborative requirements in Indiana, so the substitution is a matter of employer preference and training pipeline rather than regulation. For a PA, the practical implication is a smaller job market with less competition among employers, which is part of why the median sits below the national figure.

With only about 2,110 PAs in the state, the percentile estimates are drawn from a small sample and the tails should be read with more caution than in a larger market. The $196,280 ninetieth percentile is real but represents a small number of surgical and procedural roles rather than a broadly reachable tier. The figure also excludes production bonuses and call stipends, which in Indiana surgical practice can be a meaningful share of total compensation.

Specialty, overwhelmingly. In a thin market the general primary care and clinic roles cluster around the $123,220 to $132,050 range, and the money is in surgical first assisting, orthopaedics, cardiothoracic practice and high-acuity emergency medicine. Call coverage and first-assist responsibility add further layers. Indiana's rural hospitals also pay above their cost of living because recruitment is genuinely difficult, and locum work across the state is well paid for the same reason.