Recruiting an OB-GYN.

What does an OB-GYN earn?

Ranked among the states and the District of Columbia where BLS publishes both the mean wage and the employment figure; 12 of the 51 are left out because BLS withholds or top-codes a figure or has no row. The obstetrics and gynecology salary page has every state, the metro areas and BLS’s caveats.

The BLS figures for obstetricians and gynecologists are a mean of $279,040 (BLS, May 2025 release) a year, a median of $292,910 (BLS, May 2025 release) and about 21,260 (BLS, May 2025 release) employed. Gynecologic oncologists and maternal-fetal medicine physicians are counted in the same occupation, so the average mixes subspecialists with general OB-GYNs in community practice.

Pay is often a salary with production incentives plus call pay, and the call arrangement decides much of the offer's real value. Laborist positions pay per shift with no clinic, and candidates compare the two on hours as much as on income.

Where do OB-GYNs look for jobs?

Where new hires come from

Most new hires come straight from residency

Who employs them

Hospital-employed obstetric groups, private practices, laborist programs run by hospitals or national companies, academic departments and community health centers.

Who you compete with for candidates

Laborist and hospitalist programs with predictable shifts, gynecology-only practices with no deliveries, and subspecialty fellowships.

Residents finish a four-year program and decide in the final year whether to practice general obstetrics and gynecology, do laborist work or start a fellowship in maternal-fetal medicine, gynecologic oncology, reproductive endocrinology or urogynecology.

Residents lean on faculty and on attendings they met during rotations, and the reputation of a hospital's labor floor travels fast among them.

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 OB-GYN position cost?

What the calculator has for obstetrics and gynecology

• Revenue one physician brings in: $2,024,193 a year (estimate, AMN Healthcare (Merritt Hawkins), 2019)
• Locum pay: $150 to $200 an hour (estimate, Locumstory (CHG Healthcare), 2025)
• First-year pay: $279,040 a year (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025)
• Contingency agency fee: 20 to 30% of first-year pay (estimate, MedStaff Nationwide, 2026)

The survey figure in the calculator is $2,024,193 (estimate, AMN Healthcare (Merritt Hawkins), 2019) a year to an affiliated hospital per OB-GYN, much of it from deliveries and surgery. A practice's own collections are the better input for an independent group.

Locum OB-GYNs are paid $150 to $200 (estimate, Locumstory (CHG Healthcare), 2025) an hour. In a small hospital, a vacancy can threaten the labor unit itself: when the remaining physicians cannot keep the call schedule, the hospital has to decide whether to keep offering deliveries.

Open the calculator with obstetrics and gynecology chosen

Which recruiting channels work for obstetrics and gynecology?

Show the call math. A posting that states how many nights a month the new physician covers, and whether a laborist handles the rest, answers the question every candidate is asking before they call.

Questions to ask

• How many nights a month will the new OB-GYN be on call, and is there a laborist?
• How many deliveries does the hospital do a year, and is that number stable?
• Does the practice offer gynecology-only options later in a career?
• Is the site eligible for maternity care loan repayment?

Which rules bite OB-GYN recruiting?

Hospitals subsidize obstetric coverage in many communities, and those subsidies are the payments the federal referral laws scrutinize.

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.