Recruiting an infectious disease physician.

What does an infectious disease physician earn?

BLS publishes nothing specific to the specialty, as the panel above explains, so the federal survey offers no benchmark for an infectious disease offer.

Because consult work earns modest professional fees, hospitals often pay a salary and add paid roles such as stewardship director or hospital epidemiologist. Outpatient work in HIV care, hepatitis and travel medicine fills out many positions, sometimes funded by public health programs.

Where do infectious disease physicians look for jobs?

Where new hires come from

Most new hires finish a fellowship after residency

Who employs them

Hospitals and health systems, academic medical centers, infectious disease groups that contract with hospitals, HIV and public health clinics, and federal agencies.

Who you compete with for candidates

Academic centers with research and global health roles, public health agencies, and industry positions in drug development.

Infectious disease fellows train after internal medicine or pediatrics residency, and many have research or public health interests that shape what they want. A role that combines consults with a program they can build, such as stewardship or transplant infectious disease, draws them.

The specialty is small and collegial, and openings spread through program faculty and colleagues. Hospitals outside academic centers often recruit physicians who trained nearby or who have family ties to the region.

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 infectious disease position cost?

What the calculator has for infectious disease

• Revenue one physician brings in: no published figure, so you supply the annual revenue one physician in the specialty brings your organization
• Locum pay: $190 to $225 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 has no published revenue figure for infectious disease, which fits the specialty: the gains are fewer complications and shorter stays rather than billed services. Enter what your hospital assigns to the role if you want the line counted.

Locum infectious disease physicians are paid $190 to $225 (estimate, Locumstory (CHG Healthcare), 2025) an hour, and some hospitals cover consults remotely for a time. A stewardship program without a physician leader tends to stall until the seat is filled.

Open the calculator with infectious disease chosen

Which recruiting channels work for infectious disease?

Describe the program, not just the job. Candidates want to know which services they would lead, how much of the week is consults, and what data and staff come with stewardship and infection prevention.

Questions to ask

• Which programs would the physician lead, and are those roles paid?
• How many consults a day does the service see?
• Is there outpatient work, such as HIV or hepatitis care, and how is it funded?
• What first-year pay will the offer include?

Which rules bite infectious disease recruiting?

Infectious disease physicians are often employed by the hospital they consult in, so the federal limits on hospital pay to physicians apply directly.

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.