ASC Administrators' 2009 Salaries
What They Make		What They Think They Ought to Make
$80,001 to $90,000	19.6%	$100,714
more than $110,000	17.4%	$151,400
$90,001 to $100,000	17.1%	$112,959
$70,001 to $80,000	13.3%	$92,949
$100,001 to $110,000	12.2%	$121,000
$60,001 to $70,000	9.1%	$89,167
less than $50,000	6.6%	$85,625
$50,001 to $60,000	4.5%	$91,364
(includes any bonus and overtime pay) (income n=286; desired salaries n=280)

During the typical 8-to-5 workday, Emilie Keene, MHA, administrator of Parkridge Surgery Center in Columbia, S.C., spends the bulk of her time attending to what she calls "immediate issues" — conference calls, meetings, employee- and patient-related concerns, and anything else that comes across the threshold of her always-open office door. When the lights go out in the clinical areas and the rest of the staff leaves for the day, Ms. Keene returns to her desk and begins attending to the mounting piles of regulatory paperwork, unread e-mails and financial invoices vying for her attention. When she finally closes up shop and heads home for the day, she knows that whatever dent she's made in the workload will probably be refilled by the time 5 o'clock rolls around tomorrow.