Physician Search · Hospital-Based Specialties · Nationwide
The hardest searches in the hospital are the only ones we run.
Copperlane Solutions recruits physicians in four specialties: anesthesiology, radiology, emergency medicine, and surgery. We work on straight contingency for hospitals and independent groups nationwide, and our full terms are published on this page. There is no fee until your physician starts.
Anesthesiology
Coverage economicsHospital leaders ranked anesthesia coverage among their top three financial pressures for 2026,4 and an open seat is usually where that pressure becomes visible: bumped cases, stipend renegotiations, and locums coverage that was supposed to be temporary.
Before we contact anyone, we benchmark your package against what anesthesiologists in your region have been signing for. The variable with the most leverage right now is your state's CRNA supervision model, where the difference between markets can reach $150,000 to $200,000 in physician compensation.5 If your number is under market, we tell you in the first week and you decide how to proceed before any physician hears your hospital's name.
Outreach runs through licensing databases, fellowship programs, and physicians already in our records who have told us what a move would take. A typical search involves direct personal contact with more than a hundred qualified anesthesiologists, most of whom are not reading job postings.
Radiology
The vacancy that hides in the worklistA radiology vacancy is easy to underestimate because the reads still get done. A teleradiology contract keeps turnaround presentable while the posting ages, and the real costs accumulate quietly.
What the contract doesn't provide is a radiologist at your tumor board, procedure coverage, informal consults for the ED at 2am, or the referring-physician relationships that imaging volume depends on. Subspecialty mismatch tends to build up over time, along with the invoice.
The market itself is national now. Remote work removed the geographic protection hospitals used to count on, and compensation has followed — radiology recently became the third-highest-paid specialty in the country.1 The searches that close are the ones where the organization can say clearly why the onsite seat matters. Part of our intake call is figuring out, with you, whether yours is one of them.
Emergency Medicine
The 24/7 departmentThe emergency department is the one part of the hospital that cannot go unstaffed for a single shift, which makes an EM vacancy less a hiring problem than a scheduling emergency that renews itself every week.
The specialty's economics have shifted considerably. Compensation rose 8.5% in a year to an average around $421,000,1 yet EM physicians report some of the lowest satisfaction with their pay of any specialty,1 and attrition out of clinical practice remains a well-documented concern. Candidates in this market are weighing more than salary: staffing-group stability, boarding conditions, shift mix, and whether the schedule is survivable at fifty.
That's what our screens focus on, because it's what determines whether a hire stays. When we present an EM candidate, the summary covers what they need to be true about the job, not just their availability. Rural and single-coverage departments, where the stakes of one departure are highest, are a regular part of our work.
Surgery
General surgery & surgical subspecialtiesWhen a surgeon leaves, the case volume usually leaves with them — to the health system twenty miles away that had an offer ready. Few vacancies move a hospital's revenue line as directly.
General surgery is also where national workforce projections look worst. The AAMC puts the surgeon shortfall at 10,100 to 19,900 by 2036,8 the workforce is aging, and rural programs feel it first: the general surgeon who covers the ED call schedule, scopes, and the OR is one of the hardest recruits in medicine, which is why starting packages now average $419,000 before production.7
Our surgical searches concentrate on general surgery and the subspecialties hospitals most often need alongside it — orthopedics, urology, ENT, and vascular among them. The intake call establishes call burden, case mix, block time, and referral base, since those four things decide most surgical searches before compensation does.
The market, in numbers
From current published data| Specialty | Average compensation | One-year change | What moves the number |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anesthesiology | $543,0001 | +8.4%1 | CRNA supervision model, call structure, stipend history5 |
| Diagnostic radiology | $571,0001 | +9.0%1 | Subspecialty, remote-read mix, procedure coverage2 |
| Emergency medicine | $421,0001 | +8.5%1 | Shift mix, staffing model, boarding conditions1 |
| General surgery | $442,0001 | +2.0%1 | Call burden, case mix, rural premium, signing bonuses7 |
Sources: 1. Medscape Physician Compensation Report, 2026. 2. Doximity Physician Compensation Report, 2025. 3. Health Resources & Services Administration workforce projections. 4. Medicus Healthcare Solutions industry survey, 2026. 5. AMN Healthcare anesthesiology salary outlook, 2026. 6. Grand View Research teleradiology market analysis. 7. AMN Healthcare / Merritt Hawkins physician recruiting incentives data. 8. AAMC physician workforce projections. Figures are national averages. Your market will differ, which is why we benchmark before outreach.
From our desk
A pattern we see often: a posting goes up at last year's package, sits for ninety days, and the organization concludes there are no candidates. Usually there were candidates. They compared the package to what the market pays now and moved on without applying.
All four of these specialties repriced significantly over the past three years. Many postings haven't caught up, and in our experience that gap explains more stalled searches than the workforce numbers do.
How a search runs
And what you see along the wayIntake, 30 minutes
Case mix or modality mix, the call schedule in detail, compensation history, why the seat is open, and what the last candidates said no to. We also establish who decides and how fast. The package gets benchmarked before anyone is contacted.
Direct outreach
Personal contact, physician by physician, through licensing records, fellowship pipelines, and our own screened database. Every message names the one detail that genuinely differentiates your role, because a physician deleting twelve recruiter emails a week only stops for specifics.
A written status note
Who was contacted, who responded, who passed, and why they passed. The reasons matter most — if three physicians in a row balk at the same call schedule, you should know that within the week rather than at contract renewal.
Named submittal, with permission
A written candidate summary and CV, sent only after the physician approves your organization by name. From there we push to schedule interviews within five business days.
Offer, credentialing, start
Support through offer and signature, then weekly contact with your physician across the 90-to-150-day credentialing period, when counteroffers and second thoughts tend to surface. The fee is invoiced when your physician starts work.
- Contacted to date
- 118 physicians
- Conversations
- 14 (3 this week)
- Active screens
- 2
- Submitted
- 1 — awaiting your feedback since Tuesday
- Market feedback
- Three candidates passed specifically on the 1-in-3 call. Two asked whether the stipend resets at renewal. Comp range itself is landing fine.
- Next week
- Fellowship outreach (12 programs, June finishers); expect second submittal by Thursday.
Terms, published
So the first call can be about the roleContingency. Base only — signing bonuses and production comp are excluded from the fee calculation.
The fee is invoiced on the start date, net 30. No retainers, no engagement fees, no expenses.
If the physician leaves within 90 days, we re-run the search at no charge.
Keep your job boards, your in-house recruiter, and your other agencies. We only get paid if our candidate is the one you hire.
A candidate we introduce in writing is our referral for 12 months. Everything is documented, so there's never a question.
Your own physicians are off-limits to us while we work together and for a year after. It's in the agreement.
For physicians
What confidential means here, specificallyIf you practice in one of our four specialties, you already get recruiter email every week. Here is how working with us differs, described mechanically.
Your CV never moves without your word. Before anything is sent anywhere, you approve the specific organization by name, and we confirm that approval in writing. Exploring quietly while employed is the normal case here, and nothing about your search is discussed with your current employer or colleagues at any point.
We will also tell you what we actually know about a role, including the parts that don't make the brochure — the real call frequency, why the seat is open, what the last candidate turned it down over. You negotiate from current compensation data rather than guesswork. The hiring organization pays our fee, so the process costs you nothing at any stage, and you can step away from any role, or from us, whenever you like.
Questions we get on first calls
Answered the way we'd answer on the phoneWhat does a search cost, exactly?
20% of the physician's first-year base salary, and only if you hire a candidate we introduced. The fee is invoiced on their first day of work, payable net 30. Signing bonuses and production compensation don't count toward the fee. If the physician leaves within 90 days, we run the replacement search free.
Do you require exclusivity?
No. Most of our engagements run alongside a hospital's own postings, an in-house recruiter, and sometimes other agencies. Contingency means the risk of that arrangement is ours, not yours.
Are there searches you turn down?
Yes, and it usually happens on the intake call. If compensation is more than about 10% under the verified market and there's no willingness to discuss it, we'll decline and explain why, since a search that can't close wastes your quarter as well as ours. The same goes for roles with no defined interview process, and for engagements that have to run through a VMS portal.
Why these four specialties?
Anesthesiology, radiology, emergency medicine, and surgery share a common shape: they're hospital-based, coverage-driven, and their compensation structures — stipends, call buyouts, supervision models, shift economics, block time — are specific enough that generalist recruiters routinely get them wrong. Working a narrow set of specialties means we already know what your region pays, which programs graduate candidates when, and what made the last several candidates in your market say no. That knowledge is the product.
How are you different from the big national firms?
Mainly focus and cycle time. A national generalist firm runs your search as one requisition among hundreds. Here it's one of a handful, worked by a principal, with a written status note every Friday and a submittal-to-interview target of five business days.
We already use agencies. Why add another?
Because finding out costs nothing. Non-exclusive contingency means we're an additional line in the water that only gets paid on a catch. If your existing agencies fill the seat first, you owe us nothing.
I'm a physician. What happens after I reach out?
A 20-to-30 minute conversation about what would make a move worth it for you — location, money, schedule, group stability. If we know of something that fits, we discuss it. If we don't, we keep your preferences confidentially on file until something does. Your CV goes nowhere without your named, written approval for each organization. Mention "confidential" in your subject line and it's handled that way from the first reply.
Start the conversation
Tell us about the seat you need filled.
One email starts it. You'll get an honest read on your search, including whether we're the right firm to run it and what we'd want to see change if we're not.