Physician Assistant Salary in Michigan 2026,
$131,510 Median | BLS Data by City

Michigan physician assistants earn a median $131,510 a year, $63.23 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $119,990 and $143,030 and a full range of $104,000 to $162,570. The tight middle band is typical of a market dominated by large health systems paying on defined scales.

Ann Arbor pays the most at $135,310, then Traverse City at $134,180, Muskegon-Norton Shores at $132,230, Grand Rapids-Wyoming-Kentwood at $131,930 and Detroit-Warren-Dearborn at $131,830. Under three and a half thousand dollars separates them, so a Michigan PA choosing between these markets is really choosing on cost of living and specialty availability.

Not in the traditional sense. Michigan replaced physician supervision with a participating physician agreement: a Michigan PA practises under a written agreement with a participating physician that describes the collaborative relationship, rather than under a supervisor who assumes legal responsibility for the PA's care. The PA is accountable for their own practice within the agreement, which is a meaningful legal difference from states like New York and Georgia.

The Michigan Board of Physician's Assistants, within LARA's Bureau of Professional Licensing, licenses physician assistants. You complete an ARC-PA accredited programme, pass the Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination, satisfy Michigan's required training including human trafficking identification, and apply to the Board. A participating physician agreement must be in place before you practise.

In specialty and setting. The distance from the state median of $131,510 to the 75th percentile of $143,030 is essentially the difference between a medicine or primary care post and a surgical, procedural or critical care one, and those services exist across Michigan's academic and large regional systems. Changing service pays here; changing city does not.

The legal architecture more than the day-to-day work. By removing supervision and replacing it with a collaborative agreement, Michigan made the PA individually accountable for their practice and removed the physician's vicarious responsibility for it. In practice that has made it easier for Michigan PAs to staff rural clinics and to move between employers, because a new agreement is a negotiation between professionals rather than a supervisor taking on liability.

Very closely — $131,510 for PAs against $131,450 for nurse practitioners, essentially identical at the median. That parity is unusual: in most states one role is clearly ahead. It suggests Michigan health systems price the two roles against each other rather than against separate markets, which is consistent with how integrated advanced practice provider staffing has become in the state's inpatient services.

Because Michigan's health systems, like New York's, built PAs into surgical and inpatient services early and have kept them there. A location quotient of 1.37 means the state employs well above its population share, and the practical consequence for a job seeker is that Michigan PA postings frequently specify surgical first assist or specialty inpatient experience rather than being open to new graduates — the market is mature rather than expanding.