Recruiting a nephrologist.

What does a nephrologist earn?

Nephrology has no occupation of its own in the BLS survey; nephrologists are part of the much larger group described above. A nephrology offer has to be judged against other offers in the field, not against that group's figures.

Pay is commonly a salary on a partnership track, with income later coming from professional fees for clinic, hospital and dialysis patients, and from medical directorships of dialysis facilities. Candidates ask how many dialysis shifts they will round on and how directorships are shared.

Where do nephrologists look for jobs?

Where new hires come from

Most new hires finish a fellowship after residency

Who employs them

Independent nephrology groups, hospital-employed nephrology services, academic medical centers, and groups affiliated with dialysis providers.

Who you compete with for candidates

Academic centers with transplant and research roles, hospital employment with no dialysis rounding, and groups offering earlier partnership.

Nephrology fellows train after internal medicine residency, and the field's fellowship positions are not always filled, so each graduating fellow has choices. Groups that host fellows for electives or teach in the program see candidates early.

Practicing nephrologists move for call, for transplant work, or when a group's dialysis relationships change. A posting that spells out the hospital census, the number of dialysis units covered and the call frequency gives them what they need.

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 nephrology position cost?

What the calculator has for nephrology

• Revenue one physician brings in: $1,789,062 a year (estimate, AMN Healthcare (Merritt Hawkins), 2019)
• Locum pay: $175 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 holds $1,789,062 (estimate, AMN Healthcare (Merritt Hawkins), 2019) a year to an affiliated hospital per nephrologist, a survey figure that mostly reflects hospital admissions and procedures. Dialysis patients still need monthly visits from a nephrologist, so a vacancy shifts that rounding onto the rest of the group.

Locum nephrologists are paid $175 to $225 (estimate, Locumstory (CHG Healthcare), 2025) an hour, and agencies can supply them for hospital consults more readily than for the dialysis relationships a permanent partner builds.

Open the calculator with nephrology chosen

Which recruiting channels work for nephrology?

Because fellows have options, groups win them on workload and partnership terms, written down clearly enough to compare.

Questions to ask

• How many dialysis units and patients would the new nephrologist round on?
• How are dialysis medical directorships assigned and paid?
• What is the typical hospital census, and how is call shared?
• What first-year pay will you offer?

Which rules bite nephrology recruiting?

Dialysis directorships and joint ventures are where nephrology meets the referral laws, because nephrologists decide where their patients receive dialysis.

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.