Transplant Surgical Tech Salary 2026: $72K to $92K Plus Procurement Premium
Transplant surgical technologists work across two linked roles: procurement (travel to donor hospital, scrub for organ recovery) and recipient implant (multi-hour scheduled or emergent recipient case). Base pay typically runs $72,000 to $92,000, with procurement stipends adding $5,000 to $25,000 in total annual compensation depending on call frequency.
Pay components
- Base hourly: typically $33 to $42 at a high-volume center, before any premium.
- On-call pay: $4 to $8/hour while unrestricted on-call, plus call-back to the hospital triggers the higher of the call-back minimum or actual hours.
- Procurement stipend: $250 to $600 per organ recovery trip at most major programs, on top of travel time hours.
- Overtime: long implant cases routinely trigger 4-8 hours of overtime per case at 1.5x.
- Differential premium: nights / weekends typically add $3 to $7/hr; transplant frequently runs nights.
Top employer profiles
UNOS publishes transplant volume data; centers performing 200+ adult liver transplants or 500+ kidney transplants annually are reasonable proxies for dedicated CST team size.
- Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Phoenix, Jacksonville) - multi-organ programs across three campuses
- UPMC Pittsburgh - the Starzl Transplantation Institute, historically the highest-volume liver program
- Cleveland Clinic - strong heart, lung, liver, kidney volumes
- Johns Hopkins (Baltimore) - high pediatric and adult liver volume
- NewYork-Presbyterian Columbia (Manhattan) - major NYC-region transplant referral center
- UCLA - the Dumont-UCLA Transplant Center
- Northwestern Memorial (Chicago) - the Comprehensive Transplant Center
CSFA in transplant context
CSFAs in transplant routinely assist with vessel anastomosis, biliary reconstruction, and procurement-side vessel preparation. CSFA pay in a transplant program typically runs $90,000 to $120,000 in base, with high-volume centers reaching $130,000 to $150,000 total comp once call and stipend layers are included. The CSFA path is the highest-pay non-clinical-degree route in transplant surgery.
Sources
- BLS OEWS May 2024, SOC 29-2055: bls.gov/oes/current/oes292055.htm
- UNOS / OPTN transplant center volume data: optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/data
- Specialty pay-grid bands referenced as typical at high-volume UNOS-affiliated centers (AST salary survey + hospital pay-grid disclosures)