Recruiting a hematologist-oncologist.

What does a hematologist-oncologist earn?

There is no federal answer to that question at the level of the specialty. Oncologists appear in BLS's title list under the catch-all group shown above, and that group's average says nothing reliable about cancer specialists.

Offers from hospital cancer programs are usually salaries with work unit incentives. Independent practices offer a path to partnership, and their income includes revenue from drugs given in the office, which candidates ask about in detail.

Where do hematologist-oncologists look for jobs?

Where new hires come from

Most new hires finish a fellowship after residency

Who employs them

Hospital and health system cancer centers, independent community oncology practices, oncology networks with investor or hospital backing, and academic cancer centers.

Who you compete with for candidates

Academic centers that offer research time and disease-focused clinics, and health systems that can promise infusion capacity and radiation oncology under one roof.

Fellows complete internal medicine residency and a combined hematology and oncology fellowship, and they decide in the final year whether to pursue an academic career or community practice. Program directors and the oncologists they rotated with are their main sources of leads.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology runs its own career center, with CV search included in every posting. It costs more than the general boards and reaches the field directly.

• ASCO Career Center Per posting

  $2,400 per 30-day posting

  The oncology society's board, where every posting includes access to its CV database. Its price reflects how targeted the audience is.

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 oncology position cost?

What the calculator has for hematology and oncology

• Revenue one physician brings in: $2,855,000 a year (estimate, AMN Healthcare (Merritt Hawkins), 2019)
• Locum pay: $375 to $500 an hour (estimate, Locumstory (CHG Healthcare), 2025)
• First-year pay: no published figure, so you supply the first-year pay you expect to offer
• Contingency agency fee: 20 to 30% of first-year pay (estimate, MedStaff Nationwide, 2026)

The calculator lists $2,855,000 (estimate, AMN Healthcare (Merritt Hawkins), 2019) a year to an affiliated hospital per hematologist-oncologist, a survey figure that includes infusion, imaging and admissions. With no federal pay series, the agency fee line needs the first-year pay you plan to offer.

Locum oncologists are paid $375 to $500 (estimate, Locumstory (CHG Healthcare), 2025) an hour. Patients in active treatment cannot wait for a new hire, so a practice either spreads them among its remaining physicians or refers them out, and referred patients rarely come back.

Open the calculator with hematology and oncology chosen

Which recruiting channels work for hematology and oncology?

Start early and be specific about the practice: the disease mix, the infusion center, access to clinical trials, and how call and inpatient consults are shared. Fellows choose on those details.

Questions to ask

• Can the new oncologist offer patients clinical trials, and through which network?
• How is inpatient consult and call coverage shared?
• Does the practice include radiation oncology, or refer it out?
• What first-year pay will the offer include?

Which rules bite oncology recruiting?

Oncology involves the drugs and radiation that the self-referral law names, and frequent relationships with drug makers, so pay and ownership need careful structure.

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.