Recruiting an orthopedic surgeon.

What does an orthopedic surgeon earn?

Ranked among the states and the District of Columbia where BLS publishes both the mean wage and the employment figure; 26 of the 51 are left out because BLS withholds or top-codes a figure or has no row. The orthopedic surgery salary page has every state, the metro areas and BLS’s caveats.

In the BLS survey, orthopedic surgeons other than pediatric ones average $373,570 (BLS, May 2025 release) a year, with a median of $358,550 (BLS, May 2025 release) and about 14,100 (BLS, May 2025 release) on payrolls. Surgeons who own their unincorporated practice are left out, so the figures lean toward employed surgeons.

Offers usually start with a salary guarantee and move to production pay, with ancillary income from imaging, physical therapy or a surgery center for partners. Call pay for trauma coverage is a separate line, and its terms vary more than the salary does.

Where do orthopedic surgeons look for jobs?

Where new hires come from

Most new hires finish a fellowship after residency

Who employs them

Independent orthopedic groups, investor-backed orthopedic platforms, hospital-employed groups, academic departments and multispecialty clinics.

Who you compete with for candidates

Hospitals offering guaranteed salaries and trauma stipends, platforms offering equity, and large independent groups that own surgery centers.

Nearly all orthopedic residents complete a fellowship in sports medicine, joint replacement, spine, hand, trauma or another area, so the group decides which fellowship it needs before it recruits. Fellows sign about a year ahead.

Most searches run through fellowship directors and through surgeons who trained with the group's partners; a posting on a general board is a supplement to that, not a substitute.

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 orthopedic position cost?

What the calculator has for orthopedic surgery

• Revenue one physician brings in: $3,286,764 a year (estimate, AMN Healthcare (Merritt Hawkins), 2019)
• Locum pay: $180 to $225 an hour (estimate, Locumstory (CHG Healthcare), 2025)
• First-year pay: $373,570 a year (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025)
• Contingency agency fee: 20 to 30% of first-year pay (estimate, MedStaff Nationwide, 2026)

Revenue to an affiliated hospital is published at $3,286,764 (estimate, AMN Healthcare (Merritt Hawkins), 2019) a year per orthopedic surgeon, one of the higher figures in that survey because joint replacement and spine cases fill operating rooms and beds. An independent group with its own surgery center loses facility revenue as well.

Locum orthopedic surgeons are paid $180 to $225 (estimate, Locumstory (CHG Healthcare), 2025) an hour, and they help most with call and fracture care. Elective cases tend to wait for the permanent surgeon, and some patients go elsewhere rather than wait.

Open the calculator with orthopedic surgery chosen

Which recruiting channels work for orthopedic surgery?

Write the offer around the operating room. Block time, clinic days, physician assistant support and the call rotation are what candidates compare between groups.

Questions to ask

• How many operating room blocks a week will the new surgeon have in the first year?
• When does surgery center ownership become available, and at what price?
• How often is trauma call, and is it paid?
• Which fellowship does the practice actually need?

Which rules bite orthopedic recruiting?

Orthopedic offers mix professional pay, ancillary income and investment, and each of those has its own federal limits.

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.