Psychiatrist Salary in Georgia 2026,
$237,480 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Georgia figure is $237,480 a year, or $114.17 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025 — 15.7% below the national median of $281,870. The band runs $89,990 at the 10th percentile, which is residency pay, to $369,790 at the 90th, with $103,200 at the 25th and $318,110 at the 75th. With only 470 psychiatrists in the state the ladder should be read as indicative rather than precise.

Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell at $276,960 is the only usable metro figure. The other published row, Augusta-Richmond County at $103,200, is identical to the state 25th percentile and sits roughly $174,000 below Atlanta's — on a base of 470 psychiatrists that is a thin-sample artefact rather than a regional rate, and it should not be used as an Augusta benchmark.

Severely, and the data shows it plainly. Georgia employs psychiatrists at 0.54 times the national rate — about half — on a statewide base of 470, and access gaps outside metropolitan Atlanta are well documented, with many counties having no practising psychiatrist. About 20 openings a year, pro-rated from the national figure, is a tiny flow against that need. The state's practical responses have been telepsychiatry and expanded psychiatric nurse practitioner roles rather than a large increase in physician headcount.

Because behavioural health demand is disproportionately publicly funded, and public funding does not bid wages up the way commercial insurance does. Much psychiatric care in Georgia is delivered through community behavioural health settings, correctional systems and public hospitals reimbursed at rates well below commercial levels, so unmet need does not translate into willingness to pay. That is why the state can employ half the national rate of psychiatrists and still pay 15.7% below the national median — the shortage is real, but it is a shortage of funded positions as much as of physicians.

It is one of the more effective ways to raise income in this specialty here, though the figures on this page cannot isolate it. Psychiatry is the physician specialty most amenable to remote delivery, and Georgia's underserved regions create genuine demand that a physician can meet without relocating. Practically, that lets a psychiatrist licensed in Georgia serve multiple settings, take contracted coverage, and build a caseload larger than a single site could support — which is part of what the $318,110 seventy-fifth percentile and $369,790 ninetieth represent.

That Georgia employs psychiatrists at just over half the national rate relative to its total employment. For most occupations a figure that low would suggest the work is being done elsewhere; in psychiatry it means the work is not being done at all in large parts of the state. The consequences are documented — emergency departments boarding psychiatric patients, long waits for outpatient appointments, and heavy reliance on primary care physicians to manage psychiatric medication. It is the most consequential single number on this page, more so than any wage figure.

Sample thinness runs through it. With 470 psychiatrists statewide, one metro cell is unusable and the percentile ladder rests on few observations. The measure is also wage and salary income, which understates private practice — a substantial part of Georgia psychiatry, particularly in Atlanta, is cash-pay or out-of-network outpatient work whose income is not an employer wage. And telepsychiatry contracting, which is significant in this state, is captured inconsistently. The figure describes employed psychiatrists reasonably and the specialty as a whole less so.

Payer and setting first: private outpatient practice, particularly cash-pay and out-of-network work in Atlanta, pays well above community behavioural health and public-sector employment, and that difference accounts for much of the distance from the $103,200 twenty-fifth percentile to the $318,110 seventy-fifth. Then subspecialty, with child and adolescent psychiatry and addiction medicine both in short supply. Then inpatient and consultation-liaison work, which carries call and acuity premiums. And then telepsychiatry, which lets a physician reach beyond a single site's caseload entirely.