The Doctor’s Life Podcast Episode 001- Contract Review

It’s finally here! It’s The Doctor’s Life Podcast episode 001. It has been in the works for a while now, and we are planning on releasing these weekly. They will be available on  iTunes, and on SoundCloud. If you have an Android device, you can download a podcast player (I recommend Podcast Addict), and it will pull from iTunes.

In this inaugural episode, Justin Nabity jumps on to share some thoughts on physician contract review, along with a great story on contract review.

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Physician Contracts: Independent Contractor or Employee?

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As a physician, there will likely come a time when you need to secure a new position with a hospital, a health care group, or a privately-owned medical practice. All are opportunities in which to practice your specialty, earn a commensurate salary, and provide care for patients.

But not all positions are the same.

While it’s common to be hired as a full-time employee, there’s also a possibility that you’ll be presented with the option to work as an independent contractor.

And those are two very different things.

Before you sign your next physician contract, make sure you know the difference between working as an employee and working as an independent contractor. There are pros and cons to each, so you’ll need to weigh your options to determine which scenario is right for you.

Looking for a new position or getting ready to sign a new contract?

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Physician Contract Review FAQ’s Part 2

Read FAQ’s Part 1 here!

What should I expect regarding partnership eligibility and benefit repayment?

Our team of attorneys and advisors assist hundreds of physicians each year with employment and partnership contract reviews.  Of course, in the process, they get many questions.  This is another installment of answers to questions frequently asked in physician contract reviews, specifically around partnership eligibility and benefit repayment.

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Physician Contract Review FAQs Pt. 1

With the increasing amount of questions that our team receives regarding contract reviews, we are going to be focusing on addressing some of the most common questions over the next few weeks on the blog.

QUESTION: They didn’t teach us how to negotiate employment contracts in medical school – the suggestions you’ve given me are helpful, but how do I communicate these to the employer?

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Knowing How Hard to Negotiate in Physician Employment Contracts

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The Benefits of Professional Contract Review

During their medical training, physicians are taught about medicine. They are not taught how to analyze an employment contract, nor how to evaluate the reasonableness of a given compensation and benefits package. That is why we encourage physicians to consult with a lawyer and compensation advisor on these matters – they have the required expertise to review these issues.

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How Is the Affordable Care Act Impacting Physician Employment Contracts?

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Many of our clients are asking how the Affordable Care Act will affect physicians and their employment contracts. At this point, we are noticing the following trends:

1. Many private practices are unsure about the effects of Obamacare and are postponing new hires.

Initial surveys of private practices reveal that they have a lot of anxiety about Obamacare. According to the Medical Group Management Association (“MGMA”), two in five physician practices are unsure about whether they will participate on the government-sponsored marketplaces known as exchanges. Also, while physicians said they saw new opportunities to provide care to the uninsured and a medically underserved population, more than 80 percent of doctors worried about what they will be paid from the plans participating on the exchanges.

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The Myth that Contracts aren’t Negotiable

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One of the biggest myths told to physicians in the early stages of a contract negotiation goes something like this: “The contract is just a routine form. We really don’t negotiate it.”

If we had a dollar for every time our team heard this repeated, we would be retired on a tropical beach far away by now! In truth, it’s a standard line used in every industry (and a pretty lame one at that).

Please don’t take it at face value.

If you are ever told something similar about your contract being non-negotiable, alarm bells should be going off because it’s a ruse and it’s not true. In reality, your employer hopes you’ll just take the contract as-is.

That would be the easiest thing for everyone involved, right?

Wrong.

It’s the path of least resistance.

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Why You Should have a Lawyer Review your Employment Contract

The Importance of Contract Review Services

Many physicians believe they can review and negotiate an employment contract just as well as a lawyer. For sure, physicians are extremely intelligent, and can perform some of the tasks that lawyers do, but not all of them. There are at least three reasons that physicians should still engage a contract lawyer, even when they believe they can perform the review and negotiation themselves.

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4 Ways the Affordable Care Act is Impacting Physicians

Heraclitus, the famous Greek philosopher said “The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change -”

Our team could research and write for weeks on various topics related to the implementation of Affordable Care Act – how it affects patient care, changes to how healthcare is delivered in the United States, its impact on how hospitals and private practices are operated, etc.

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