CFordUNC
Inconceivable Member
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I know there are several doctors, lawyers, and possibly other contract professionals in this community so I wanted to get some insight from y'all. We're in the contract negotiation stage right now after choosing between two great offers for two different jobs- one was at an academic medical center and one is private practice. We've selected the private practice offer, where I think there may be a little more room for negotiating. Academic medicine seems like the offers for first-time attendings are pretty standard/boilerplate and therefore little to no room for negotiation, but practice practice seems more open to it.
For background info, this private practice offer is for a partnership/ownership track where, after working a certain number of hours (typically ~3 years), you have the opportunity to become a partner. It's a 100% physician-owned practice. The first three years as an associate (pre-partner) are salaried with a transition from straight salary for the first 6 months, to more RVU-based production from month 6 through month 36, at which point as a partner from month 37 onward, it is strictly 100% RVU-based. Once partner, you have the opportunity to also buy into a capital account for profit-sharing.
My questions are:
1. Where are there typically the biggest opportunities for negotiating a first-time attending contract? I don't think we can negotiate starting salary, for multiple reasons, but not the least of which is because the starting base salary of the private practice offer is already more than double that of the academic offer. Once you make partner and participate in profit-sharing, the total compensation is essentially 4x the academic offer. So I don't think there's any room for negotiating compensation.
2. The non-compete clause seems pretty draconian; you can't work for any competitor health system within a certain radius for a minimum of 20 months after separation from this practice (or there are some really steep financial penalties), and you can't moonlight at all at any other practice or with any competitor healthcare system, period. Obviously it's hard to know what we'll want to do 10, 15, 20 years from now, or whatever, but since we don't have any interest in working for any of the competitors or moonlighting at all, is it worth trying to negotiate the non-compete at all?
3. Assuming we can't (wont) try to negotiate anything from a compensatory standpoint, and also assuming we don't really need to negotiate the non-compete clause, is it worth trying to negotiate the size of the signing bonus and/or relocation bonus?
4. Should I pay to have a physician-specific contract review service take a look at this contract? It's not inexpensive by any means to do so, but obviously in the grand scheme it'd be a drop in the bucket compared to being saddled with a contract that I don't fully understand.
Just trying to wrap my head around this kind of stuff for the first time and want to make sure I'm not missing anything or blindly signing what I don't understand. Thanks a ton for any advice or insight anyone is willing to share.
For background info, this private practice offer is for a partnership/ownership track where, after working a certain number of hours (typically ~3 years), you have the opportunity to become a partner. It's a 100% physician-owned practice. The first three years as an associate (pre-partner) are salaried with a transition from straight salary for the first 6 months, to more RVU-based production from month 6 through month 36, at which point as a partner from month 37 onward, it is strictly 100% RVU-based. Once partner, you have the opportunity to also buy into a capital account for profit-sharing.
My questions are:
1. Where are there typically the biggest opportunities for negotiating a first-time attending contract? I don't think we can negotiate starting salary, for multiple reasons, but not the least of which is because the starting base salary of the private practice offer is already more than double that of the academic offer. Once you make partner and participate in profit-sharing, the total compensation is essentially 4x the academic offer. So I don't think there's any room for negotiating compensation.
2. The non-compete clause seems pretty draconian; you can't work for any competitor health system within a certain radius for a minimum of 20 months after separation from this practice (or there are some really steep financial penalties), and you can't moonlight at all at any other practice or with any competitor healthcare system, period. Obviously it's hard to know what we'll want to do 10, 15, 20 years from now, or whatever, but since we don't have any interest in working for any of the competitors or moonlighting at all, is it worth trying to negotiate the non-compete at all?
3. Assuming we can't (wont) try to negotiate anything from a compensatory standpoint, and also assuming we don't really need to negotiate the non-compete clause, is it worth trying to negotiate the size of the signing bonus and/or relocation bonus?
4. Should I pay to have a physician-specific contract review service take a look at this contract? It's not inexpensive by any means to do so, but obviously in the grand scheme it'd be a drop in the bucket compared to being saddled with a contract that I don't fully understand.
Just trying to wrap my head around this kind of stuff for the first time and want to make sure I'm not missing anything or blindly signing what I don't understand. Thanks a ton for any advice or insight anyone is willing to share.