Infectious Disease Doctor Salary (2026): What ID Physicians Earn, Why Fellowships Go Unfilled, and Whether It Pays Off

Infectious disease doctor salary in 2026, by source

The current sources put a full-time ID physician between about $282,000 and $360,000, a wider spread than for most specialties. Doximity's figure rose 5.2% in a year and MGMA's 7.3%, both well above the roughly 2% Doximity measured for physicians overall.

Why infectious disease pay figures disagree

1. Sample size and selection. Doximity surveyed about 23,000 physicians and models its averages over seven years of responses; Medscape surveyed 5,916 physicians across more than 29 specialties, so its ID group is a small slice. SalaryDr's 73 reports come from physicians who chose to share their pay.
2. Who's in the sample. The IDSA survey included researchers and public health physicians, and its 2017 median ($215,000) is also nine years old. ID has a large academic and public health share, which pulls broad surveys down.
3. Average vs. median. Doximity and Medscape publish averages; SalaryDr and IDSA publish medians.

The IDSA survey is still useful for one thing current sources don't publish: how setting and gender shape ID pay. It found the median for full-time private-practice ID physicians rising from $248,000 in 2015 to $260,000 in 2017, and women earning less than men in every practice category. For an offer today, benchmark against Doximity for typical pay and SalaryDr's middle half for a strong offer.

Infectious disease pay vs. internal medicine and other fellowships

On Doximity, ID now sits just $1,921 below the general internist average and ahead of rheumatology and endocrinology, but well behind nephrology. Medscape shows a larger gap to internal medicine ($25,000). Either way, ID earns no premium for its fellowship, which is the root of its recruiting problem.

How infectious disease physicians are paid

1. Base salary, usually guaranteed for the first years of an employed contract.
2. wRVU bonus on inpatient consults, follow-up hospital visits and clinic visits, all evaluation and management codes. See what a wRVU is. We couldn't verify a current ID-specific wRVU rate or volume benchmark: the secondary summaries of MGMA's ID figures we found contradict one another.
3. Directorship stipends for antimicrobial stewardship, infection prevention, outpatient parenteral antibiotic therapy (OPAT) and transplant ID programs.
4. Call pay, where the hospital pays for weekend and night consult coverage.
5. Grant and public health funding in academic and HIV-focused roles, including federally funded HIV clinics.

Stewardship, infection prevention and unbilled work

Much of what ID physicians do can't be billed. Curbside advice to other doctors, reviewing antibiotic orders, outbreak response and infection control don't produce a claim. Medicare's hospital conditions of participation require every hospital to run an antibiotic stewardship program, but they don't require the hospital to pay a physician to lead it.

• Many ID physicians do it unpaid. In a survey of 522 ID physicians in the IDSA Emerging Infections Network, published in 2011, more than half reported no direct pay for stewardship work, even though the authors called paid physician participation critical.
• Resourcing matters for results. A 2018 Clinical Infectious Diseases survey of stewardship programs found that each 0.5 increase in pharmacist and physician full-time equivalent support predicted 1.48 times the odds of the program showing effectiveness, and proposed staffing ratios for negotiating with hospital leaders.
• What to ask for. A stewardship or infection prevention directorship should come with a written FTE share (time released from clinical work) or a stipend. If the hospital expects the work without either, it's a pay cut hidden in your consult schedule.

Infectious disease salary by practice setting

Hospital employment pays best in SalaryDr's data, $45,000 above academic ID. That fits the work: hospitals need inpatient consult coverage and stewardship leadership, and pay for it. In the 2017 IDSA survey, practice owners had the highest medians; SalaryDr has too few private-practice reports to say whether that still holds.

• Hospital-employed: consult-heavy, often with call; base plus wRVU bonus; PSLF if the system is a nonprofit.
• Academic: lower clinical pay, research and teaching time, transplant and HIV programs, and almost always PSLF-eligible.
• Public health and HIV clinics: government and nonprofit employers that qualify for PSLF and often for loan repayment programs; see our FQHC physician benefits guide.

Infectious disease doctor hours and pay per hour

SalaryDr's 73 ID physicians report about 43 hours a week, rate satisfaction 4 out of 5, and 90% would choose ID again. The hours can rise sharply in an outbreak, as they did during the COVID-19 pandemic. Inpatient consult services and weekend call drive the workload in hospital jobs.

Infectious disease take-home pay by state

The same salary leaves about $31,667 more a year in Texas than in California. SalaryDr's state pages for ID are built on two to seventeen reports each, too few to compare states, so taxes are the location effect we can compute. Use the take-home pay calculator and physician salary by state for your own case.

Is an infectious disease fellowship worth it financially?

Using the method from our is a fellowship worth it guide: the internist starts practice after residency; the ID physician spends two years at fellow stipends ($77,593 and $81,807, AAMC 2025 PGY-4 and PGY-5 means), then earns the ID figure. Both work 30 years after residency, single, in Texas, discounted at 3% a year.

• Against the Doximity internist, ID earns $1,921 a year less, so the $349,766 after-tax cost of fellowship is never recovered.
• On SalaryDr's medians, the $32,000 premium recovers it in about 16.7 years. A two-year fellowship needs about $30,203 a year over the internist average to break even in present value.
• A hospital-employed ID job at SalaryDr's $385,000 median beats the hospitalist median by $40,000, enough to recover the fellowship after tax in 14.2 years. That is the best realistic financial case for ID.

Change the assumptions in our specialty ROI calculator.

Student loans and PSLF for infectious disease physicians

PSLF matters a great deal in ID, because its employers are mostly nonprofit hospitals, academic centers and public health agencies. Our student loan hub's model ($215,000, the AAMC median debt for indebted 2025 graduates, at 6.5%; payments from the start of residency; single; Doximity average pay after training):

With five of the ten PSLF years in training, the ID physician pays about $48,095 less than a general internist on IBR and has about $188,425 forgiven, tax-free. Without PSLF, the 10-year Standard plan after training costs about $379,945 ($2,977 a month). See our PSLF guide, does my hospital qualify for PSLF and PSLF vs. refinancing.

The ID fellowship and workforce gap

ID has one of the weakest matches among the adult medicine fellowships: about four in ten positions went unfilled for 2026, while rheumatology and endocrinology filled almost every spot. Fewer fellows today means fewer ID physicians in a few years, as HRSA's projection of supply at 91% of demand in 2038 reflects. In a 2023 survey of ID fellowship program directors, low specialty pay was among the reasons they gave for unfilled positions, along with geography and a small applicant pool.

For a new ID physician, a thin pipeline is leverage. Hospitals that can't staff consult services or stewardship programs pay for coverage, and the 7.3% increase in MGMA's data suggests they already are. Ask for directorship stipends, a signing bonus and loan repayment, especially outside major academic markets.

Pediatric infectious disease salary

Pediatric infectious disease averaged $217,819 in Doximity's 2026 report, the lowest of every specialty Doximity tracks, down 12.3% from $248,322 in 2025. It takes a three-year fellowship after pediatrics residency. Nearly all jobs are at children's hospitals and academic centers, so PSLF is usually the largest financial factor. See our pediatrician salary guide and the pediatric rows of the fellowship guide.

Negotiating an infectious disease offer

1. Directorships in writing. Stewardship, infection prevention, OPAT or transplant ID roles should carry a stipend or a defined FTE reduction.
2. Consult volume and census. Ask for the average daily inpatient consult census and how many hospitals you cover.
3. Call and weekends. Frequency, whether it's paid separately, and phone-only vs. in-person coverage.
4. Base vs. productivity. ID consult work generates modest wRVUs; a higher guaranteed base is often worth more than a bonus you won't reach.
5. Credit for non-billable work. Telehealth and e-consult coverage of other hospitals should count toward production or carry a stipend.
6. Loan repayment and PSLF. Confirm the employer qualifies, and ask for loan repayment, especially in underserved areas.
7. Non-compete. Read our non-compete guide and contract red flags before signing.

Use our contract analyzer to compare offers, and our salary negotiation and signing bonus guides before you respond.

Sources

1. Doximity Physician Compensation Report 2026 (infectious disease $337,353, pediatric infectious disease $217,819, internal medicine $339,274) and the 2025 report ($320,730 and $248,322).
2. Medscape Physician Compensation Report 2026; sample and survey dates via Becker's ASC.
3. SalaryDr: infectious disease salaries, hospital-employed, academic and lifestyle survey; internal medicine and hospitalist medians from SalaryDr. Self-reported; read October 2026.
4. MGMA 2026 Provider Compensation data, one-year change by specialty, via Marit Health.
5. 2017 Infectious Diseases Society of America Physician Compensation Survey: Results and Analysis, Open Forum Infectious Diseases, 2018, and Healio coverage.
6. Results and Data, Specialties Matching Service 2026, NRMP; Compensation, current events impact ID recruitment, Healio, January 2026.
7. Physician workforce projections fact sheet, HRSA, December 2025; Analysis of the infectious disease fellowship program directors post-Match 2023 survey, Journal of Infectious Diseases.
8. Johannsson et al. Improving antimicrobial stewardship: the evolution of programmatic strategies and barriers, Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, 2011; Doernberg et al. Essential resources and strategies for antibiotic stewardship programs in the acute care setting, Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2018.
9. AAMC 2025 Survey of Resident/Fellow Stipends and Benefits, as tabulated in our resident salary guide; fellowship length from the ACGME program requirements for infectious disease.
10. Take-home pay, fellowship and loan figures: computed from our 2026 tax model and student loan model.