Healthcare CEO, CFO pay gap wider in 2014, though execs see largest raises, report says

Healthcare chief executive and chief financial officers saw among the largest pay increases between 2013 and 2014 compared to other business sectors, a new report by accounting firm BDO USA found. Though the pay gap between these top healthcare execs is wider than others.

The report only factors in publicly traded companies with annual revenues between $25 million and $1 billion.

According to BDO, average healthcare CEO pay jumped from $2.5 million in 2013 to nearly $4 million in 2014, a 55 percent jump. Meanwhile, CFO pay jumped from around $1 million in 2013 to $1.4 million, a 34 percent increase.

[Also: Executive salaries rise as officers reap benefits of performance incentives]

Only the real estate and technology sectors paid higher average salaries to CEOs in 2014, the report found.

While healthcare execs saw big bumps, overall the change in CEO/CFO compensation was far more modest when factoring in other industries.

Total CEO pay in 2014, averaging just over $3 million, was just 0.7 percent higher than in 2013, though CFOs saw a nearly 5 percent jump to average around $1.2 million for their annual salaries.

[Also: Healthcare compensation targeted by public, government amid budget concerns]

"CFO compensation, in particular, is benefiting as is evident by its outpacing of CEO pay," said Randy Ramirez, a senior director in the Global Employer Practice at BDO, in a statement. "One possible explanation is the increased responsibility placed on CFOs to leverage market momentum in order to realize a company's financial vision."

But while healthcare execs may have seen the biggest bump, it also saw the biggest disparity between CEO and CFO pay in 2014, the report said.

According to BDO, CFOs on average earned 35 percent of what CEOs made in 2014, the lowest of all the industries included in the report. For example, CFOs in financial services companies earned 43 percent of what CEOs made, while real estate CFOs earned 40 percent of what its chief executives made.

Twitter: @HenryPowderly