Recruiting a dermatologist.

What does a dermatologist earn?

Ranked among the states and the District of Columbia where BLS publishes both the mean wage and the employment figure; 36 of the 51 are left out because BLS withholds or top-codes a figure or has no row. The dermatology salary page has every state, the metro areas and BLS’s caveats.

The BLS mean for dermatologists is $323,530 (BLS, May 2025 release) a year and the median $328,730 (BLS, May 2025 release), across roughly 11,370 (BLS, May 2025 release) on payrolls. Dermatologists who own an unincorporated practice are not in the count, so these are the earnings of employed dermatologists.

Packages are usually a base salary for the first year or two, then a share of collections. Candidates compare the collections percentage, how cosmetic and procedural revenue is credited, and whether the practice employs physician assistants whose work counts toward the physician's production. The state tables below show where payroll dermatologists earn most; cosmetic income can move an individual offer far from those figures.

Where do dermatologists look for jobs?

Where new hires come from

New hires come from residency or after a fellowship

Who employs them

Independent and partnership practices, investor-backed dermatology groups, academic departments, multispecialty groups, and cosmetic and aesthetic clinics.

Who you compete with for candidates

Private equity platforms that offer equity in the parent company, and cash-pay cosmetic practices that promise shorter days and no insurance paperwork.

Most dermatology hiring still happens through people rather than postings. Residents rely on their program faculty and on dermatologists they met during rotations. Mohs surgeons finish a fellowship after residency and are recruited by name through that small network.

Experienced dermatologists move when an acquisition changes their pay or autonomy. A practice that stays independent can say so in its posting; that is a reason to call for many candidates.

Every board’s listing, with its posting lengths and how CV access is sold, is in the job board directory; what a physician job posting costs compares them.

The locum agency directory has each agency’s states, malpractice coverage and physician pay where it states them.

What does an open dermatology position cost?

What the calculator has for dermatology

• Revenue one physician brings in: no published figure, so you supply the annual revenue one physician in the specialty brings your organization
• Locum pay: $225 to $300 an hour (estimate, Locumstory (CHG Healthcare), 2025)
• First-year pay: $323,530 a year (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025)
• Contingency agency fee: 20 to 30% of first-year pay (estimate, MedStaff Nationwide, 2026)

The calculator has no published revenue figure for dermatology, so the worked example leaves that line for you. Fill it with your own collections per dermatologist: a full schedule of medical dermatology, biopsies and procedures, with the pathology and cosmetic revenue your structure credits to the physician.

Locum dermatologists exist but are scarce, priced at $225 to $300 (estimate, Locumstory (CHG Healthcare), 2025) an hour in physician pay alone. The more common cost of a vacancy is the waiting list: new patients booked months out drift to another practice, and referring primary care physicians start sending skin checks elsewhere.

Open the calculator with dermatology chosen

Which recruiting channels work for dermatology?

With classes this small, a practice that waits for applications rarely sees many. The search works best when a partner calls program directors early, hosts residents for an elective, and tells candidates plainly how the practice is owned.

Questions to ask

• How long is the wait for a new medical dermatology patient today?
• Can you put the ownership structure, and any plan to sell, in writing for a candidate?
• How are cosmetic, Mohs and pathology revenue credited to the physician who generates them?
• Which residency programs have you hosted a resident from in the last two years?

Which rules bite dermatology recruiting?

Two things in a dermatology offer draw federal attention: covenants written into acquisition and employment contracts, and how in-office laboratory and procedure revenue reaches the physician.

Every federal rule this site cites, grouped by what a practice or recruiter is doing, is on the federal rules page. For the contract itself (pay models, tail coverage, restrictive covenants), read the physician employment contract, clause by clause. These notes describe the rules and cite them; they are not legal advice for a particular offer or contract.