Salary is a big part of whether a job ultimately ends up being a good fit, so it’s important for physicians to know their worth in the job market and to ask for it. Having access to salary data empowers doctors to know whether they are being compensated appropriately. Nephrologists need transparency about what the average salary in nephrology is, as well as about other typical parts of the compensation package, so that they can leverage this information during contract negotiations.
We have therefore tried to provide both concrete data points as well as compile physician salary data on what doctors make, and make it available to our members for free, as opposed to having to pay for expensive databases. Using data gathered from our physician online communities, we have started this series on compensation data by specialty to assess aggregate data from our physician salary and compensation database provided by physicians across the country.
Disclaimers/Disclosures: This information is derived from our physician salary and compensation databases, but is subject to self-reporting errors and availability of relevant data points from our online communities. This information is provided for educational purposes only, and is aimed at advocating for individual physicians. It is not intended to be used for collective bargaining; please see additional disclosures and disclaimers on the physician salary data pages. Please also do your own research before making any decisions based on the information provided. We are not formal financial, legal, or tax professionals and do not provide individualized advice. You should consult these as appropriate. We highly recommend having your physician employment agreement reviewed by a physician contract review attorney to ensure you have the most up to date and relevant information for your specific situation.
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How Nephrology Aggregate Stats Were Determined
The data for nephrologists below was compiled using data points anonymously contributed to our database between mid-2023 and mid-2024. While we typically like to have more data points before assessing aggregate statistics for a specialty, at the time of this article, we only had 56 contributions available. Smaller datasets may be less representative of the overall landscape of the specialty. As such, we remind you to access the full free doctor salary and negotiation database to compare your situation to relevant data. A local physician employment contract review attorney can also help you assess what current market trends are in your area.
Unless otherwise noted, the stats below are for full-time attending nephrologists, determined based on a full-time equivalency of an average 36+ hours worked a week. We excluded data contributed by residents and fellows. This data also omits pediatric nephrologists, which we have covered separately with our pediatric specialties article. You can learn more about the average salary for pediatric nephrologists there.
We would love to reassess the statistics and further expand insights based upon future data. As such, we will continue to update this page as more contributions are received.
If you haven’t already, please contribute your anonymous physician salary and negotiation data to help others in your specialty.
How Much Does a Nephrologist Make in 2024?
The average annual salary across all of our contributing nephrologists for 2024 was $348,000.
A single average annual salary can be misleading, as several factors affect salary. We break this number down further to help you find more relevant comparison points.
Average Full-Time Nephrologist Salary for 2024
While we don’t have enough data points to assess a part-time salary for 2024, we did omit the part-time contributions we had to look at just the average salary for full-time work. For 2024, the average annual salary for full-time nephrologists was $357,000. To give you an idea on the range of salaries around this average, a few extra stats:
The highest reported salary was $830,000 a year.
The lowest reported salary was $140,000 a year.
The median salary was $327,500 a year.
We break this full-time salary down further by other factors that commonly affect salaries for doctors.
Nephrologist Salary by Gender
Throughout our how much doctors make by specialty series, we’ve generally seen a gender gap in salaries, so we looked at the average salary by gender.
Female nephrologists reported an average salary of $307,000. Male nephrologists reported 25% higher earnings with an average salary of $383,000.
This is higher than the average gender gap we’ve seen within other specialties. While a smaller dataset makes it difficult to dig deeper and track trends, we did notice that female nephrologists were more likely to report working for academic hospitals than their male counterparts. As we’ll see in the next section, the practice environment can heavily influence salaries doctors make.
How Much Nephrologists Make by Practice Environment
We next broke down the data by where our nephrologists reported working to assess the average pay differences by practice environment.
Group private practices: $370,000
Hospital, academic: $323,000
Hospital, non-academic: $344,000
As we’ve seen across most specialties, nephrologists working for academic hospitals reported the lowest average salaries at 7% less than colleagues at non-academic hospitals and 15% less than colleagues working in private practice.
When looking at this difference, we always like to remind doctors that salary is only one component of the overall compensation package. Positions with academic hospitals often qualify for Public Student Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) or have better retirement benefits, which is one of the reasons we say to consider not just the salary but the entire proposed offer.
Nephrologist Salary by Type of Employment
Being an owner or partner in a private practice can often significantly increase earning potential within your field of medicine, so we looked at how the type of employment affected average salaries reported.
W-2 employee nephrologists reported an average salary of $306,000, while owners and partners reported an average salary 60% higher of $489,000. While outliers can skew smaller datasets more than in specialties with more data points, this comparison highlights the monetary upside potential of managing a private practice.
We have a ton of resources for physicians interested in exploring starting and running their own private practice.
Learn more about private practice with:
How Much Nephrologists Make by Hours Worked
Medicine can often be an “eat what you kill” industry, so we wanted to look at how average salaries varied in 2024 by reported hours worked by our nephrologists.
36-40 hours a week - $354,000
41-45 hours a week - $316,000
46-50 hours a week - $386,000
51+ hours a week - $362,000
While we don’t see a straight line trend of increasing salaries with hours worked, we’d like to again caution that outliers can skew smaller datasets and urge you to look for comparable data points to your specific situation in the full, free physician salary and compensation database.
With the dataset we currently have, it appears that other factors such as practice environment and type of employment may influence average salaries in nephrology more than hours worked. We will continue to assess this as we receive additional data.
How Much Nephrologists Work
When we look at salaries by hours worked, we also like to look at how much, on average, doctors in different specialties work.
The majority of nephrologists reported working 36-50 hours per week.
Along with the average hours per week reported, nephrologists can also include in our database how many hours a week they spend charting at home. While the majority of nephrologists reported spending less than 5 hours a week charting, 27% reported spending 5+ hours additional on charting on top of the hours reported in the graphic above.
If you find yourself spending a lot of time charting, an AI scribe may be able to dramatically decrease the amount of time you spend charting. A course on charting efficiency may also be able to help. You can check out our career support resources for doctors for perks on both if either might help!
Changes in Nephrology Salaries Over Time
As noted above, the data analyzed included contributions from mid 2023 to mid 2024, reflecting data from our most recent salary and compensation database.
We also dug into our previous salary database we started in 2018 to get an idea of the trends in average pay for nephrologists over time. To compare relative data, we continued to look only at physicians out of residency/fellowship who worked on average 36+ hours a week. For 2023, we combined the data from the old database and the new database, cutting off entries at the transition point to help omit any overlapping or duplicate information.
2018-2020: $273,000
2021-2023: $273,000
2024: $357,000
While our small dataset does not show a clear trend in average salaries for the beginning part of this decade, we did see a 31% increase with our newest dataset versus 2018-2023 data. We look forward to continuing to grow our database and to assess trends in future years. With an increasing number of data points each year, we hope to pull better insights.
If you haven’t already, please take a minute to contribute your anonymous data to our physician salary and compensation database for future updates.
Additional Insights into Nephrologist Compensation Packages
Since salary is only one component of an overall employment package, we also like to look at trends in other parts of compensation.
Sign-On and Relocation Bonuses Nephrologists Receive
35% of nephrologists reported receiving a sign-on bonus, with an average amount of $25,000. Signing bonuses ranged from $10,000 to $50,000.
Learn more about:
36% of nephrologists reported receiving a relocation bonus, with an average of $16,000. Moving bonuses ranged from $3,000 to $30,000. Some members mentioned that their relocation bonus was a straight reimbursement of expenses versus a flat amount given.
Average Vacation Days Nephrologists Receive
The average number of annual vacation days nephrologists received was 26 days. The median was 25 days. Reported vacation time varied anywhere from one week to eleven weeks. The highest reported amount of vacation time was by owners in private practices.
CME Stipends for Nephrologists
60% of our nephrologists reported receiving some sort of CME stipend. Stipends ranged from $800 to $10,000, with an average of $3,400.
Average Student Loan Debt for Nephrology
While student loans are not a part of compensation, student loan debt forgiveness can be a benefit with many positions. Of our nephrologists who reported their student loan debt at graduation, the average debt was $249,000. The higher your federal loan debt burden, the more beneficial repayment programs and loan forgiveness programs can be.
Learn more about doctor student loans. If you’ve been considering refinancing to help with the debt burden, you can also explore our student loan refinancing options.
Extra Insights from Nephrologists
As part of our salary and compensation data contributions, members of our physician online community can provide additional comments. As we compile our aggregate salary data for these articles, we like to look at some of the insights provided by other physicians in the specialty. With the limited number of data points we have, we don’t currently have many career insights, but the limited data we have mentioned on call work.
One member commented that in nephrology, it felt like you were always on call. Another mentioned that fellows at their institution were the first on call, so they never have to go in for call. These two comments show a stark contrast and can highlight the importance of covering the discussion regarding on call scheduling and responsibilities during the interview process.
Learn more with related content:
Increasing Your Nephrologist Salary
If the information above has you questioning your current salary, there are a few different ways to increase your income in nephrology. But a reminder first to look at the overall picture. Salary is a key component to physician compensation, but it isn’t the only part of a well negotiated physician employment contract.
If you like where you work but don’t love the pay, consider setting aside a time to talk with management. If you are a valued part of their team, they may be willing to work with you to renegotiate your contract versus risking you leaving. Their answer may be no, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. Be practical in what you’re expecting and respectful in your request. Diving deeper into the salary and compensation data for physicians for comparable situations can help you get a target idea of what to try to renegotiate for.
Looking for additional career opportunities can also help. Sometimes, an employer may either not be able to or just not willing to work with you to get you to where you should be. That doesn’t mean every job will come with the same constraints. Interviewing for a few other positions can give you a feel of what the market looks like from the employer’s perspective by what employers are willing to offer. Explore open opportunities on our Physician Side Gigs job board, and explore all our physician career resources and education to help you navigate the job search process.
While we think the data above and in our database can be a great tool during the negotiation process, we almost always also recommend hiring a local contract review attorney for physicians to review your contract. They will have invaluable experience when it comes to negotiating physician contracts, including understanding what red flags to watch out for.
If you’re looking to increase your income in nephrology but are already at or above your market’s rate, you have options in this situation as well. Explore popular medical and nonmedical side gigs to help increase your income.
Additional Salary and Career Resources for Nephrologists
Explore our related articles and resources on doctor compensation and salaries:
If you haven’t recently, please take a few minutes to contribute! The data provided is used only for the purpose of our database to help physicians like yourself negotiate better compensation by helping provide salary transparency with relevant data. The data is completely anonymous and is only available to members of our Physician Side Gigs Facebook group. Contribution links can be found on our compensation data for physicians page.
Looking for a new career opportunity? Explore the Physician Side Gigs job board for current opportunities.
If you need guidance on negotiating your next contract for the best possible deal, check out:
Also check out common medical and nonmedical side gigs for doctors.