Recruiting a neurosurgeon.

What does a neurosurgeon earn?

BLS names neurosurgeons among the specialties in Surgeons, All Other, as the panel above shows, rather than giving them an occupation. That group's average blends many surgical fields and is not a neurosurgery benchmark.

Hospital offers to neurosurgeons combine a salary or production pay with call stipends, and the call terms often decide the offer. Spine-focused practices pay on production, with surgery center and imaging income for partners.

Where do neurosurgeons look for jobs?

Where new hires come from

New hires come from residency or after a fellowship

Who employs them

Hospital-employed neurosurgery groups, private neurosurgery and spine practices, academic medical centers and trauma centers.

Who you compete with for candidates

Academic centers with subspecialty programs, spine practices with less trauma call, and large systems that can share call among many surgeons.

Neurosurgery residency is among the longest in medicine, and some residents add a fellowship in spine, endovascular, pediatric or tumor surgery. Program chairs and the surgeons residents trained under carry most of the information about who is looking.

Experienced neurosurgeons move for call relief, for a program they can lead, or for spine-only practice. A posting that states how many surgeons share call, and whether the hospital funds physician assistants and neurocritical care, speaks to what they weigh.

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 neurosurgery position cost?

What the calculator has for neurosurgery

• Revenue one physician brings in: $3,437,500 a year (estimate, AMN Healthcare (Merritt Hawkins), 2019)
• Locum pay: $350 to $475 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 $3,437,500 (estimate, AMN Healthcare (Merritt Hawkins), 2019) a year to an affiliated hospital per neurosurgeon, among the highest figures in the survey it comes from, because neurosurgical cases bring long stays, imaging and intensive care. That revenue is why hospitals subsidize neurosurgical call.

Locum neurosurgeons are paid $350 to $475 (estimate, Locumstory (CHG Healthcare), 2025) an hour, and hospitals use them to keep trauma and stroke coverage intact. Without coverage, patients with head injuries or brain bleeds have to be transferred to another center.

Open the calculator with neurosurgery chosen

Which recruiting channels work for neurosurgery?

The hospital's commitment to the service is the offer. Candidates look for enough surgeons to share call, neurocritical care, operating room access and a plan for growth before they look at salary.

Questions to ask

• How many neurosurgeons share trauma and stroke call?
• Does the hospital have neurocritical care and endovascular capability?
• What share of the work would be spine, cranial or trauma?
• Is the call stipend in writing, with its basis documented?

Which rules bite neurosurgery recruiting?

Call stipends, income guarantees and device company relationships are central to neurosurgical recruiting, and each falls under federal rules.

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.