Salary vs RVU based private practice

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SuperDO

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I am currently in my second year working as a Cardiologist on a salary with a private group. I have noticed that most other Cardiologists are on an RVU like system. To those of you who work for RVU's, what has your experience been? If you work at a busy hospital do you typically meet and maybe exceed what is required of you? What are typical salaries starting / 3 to 5 years out? Ive seen numbers online but they often seem exaggerated.

How do you feel this will play out long term. If there are experiences from both non-invasive and interventional docs, I would appreciate it.

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I am currently in my second year working as a Cardiologist on a salary with a private group. I have noticed that most other Cardiologists are on an RVU like system. To those of you who work for RVU's, what has your experience been? If you work at a busy hospital do you typically meet and maybe exceed what is required of you? What are typical salaries starting / 3 to 5 years out? Ive seen numbers online but they often seem exaggerated.

How do you feel this will play out long term. If there are experiences from both non-invasive and interventional docs, I would appreciate it.

Depends on a lot of factors obviously...

Salary usually is easier work at the expense of a ceiling for a salary. So better for older guys, guys that don't want to work as hard, those who want 6-10 weeks off, ect..

RVU models vary. I'm in a strict RVU pay only. I get a set dollar amount in my psa with no other support. So strictly eat what u kill.

The salary guys in my neck of the woods make 450-600 + benefits with range of 6-12 weeks off per year. The general guys make very similar to IC and EP so they're benefiting from this tremendously. But I know of some very busy IC who feel they should be making much more and are disgruntled.

I'm young and busy and with my RVU payout I can hit in 800-1 million zone, something I couldn't do in a salary model at the expense of no benefits, limited time off and a hustling work model (round, cath, clinic, cath, back to clinic, ect)..

With that said the strict RVU only payouts will likely all be phased out over the next 3-5 years I believe. Mine is going away in 18 months. They'll use the cms/macra "value based" payment as the reason so assume more and more will be salary.. Which I'm personally against due to the downward slope that usually entails over time..
 
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With that said the strict RVU only payouts will likely all be phased out over the next 3-5 years I believe. Mine is going away in 18 months. They'll use the cms/macra "value based" payment as the reason so assume more and more will be salary.. Which I'm personally against due to the downward slope that usually entails over time..

Are they doing that to skim more off the top?
 
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Can we reopen this thread?

Hitting the 800-1m zone with an RVU based system, can you give us an idea of what your work week is like? Especially compared to the salary guys?
 
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Are they doing that to skim more off the top?
It's Macra. These changes aren't coming from your friendly neighborhood administrators but from federal level. It begins with Medicare/Medicaid and likely all private insurers will follow suit with "value based" reimbursement.

The long game for them is to whittle away at reimbursements until you beg for single payer.
 
Can we reopen this thread?

Hitting the 800-1m zone with an RVU based system, can you give us an idea of what your work week is like? Especially compared to the salary guys?
1 million based purely on RVUs means you are working yourself to death. Assuming $50 per RVU, that means you're pulling 20k RVUs per year. I gotta give someone props for that kind of hustle, but the work life balance has got to be nil.
 
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1 million based purely on RVUs means you are working yourself to death. Assuming $50 per RVU, that means you're pulling 20k RVUs per year. I gotta give someone props for that kind of hustle, but the work life balance has got to be nil.

Jesus christ.

How do you know when to fall back and just cut your work week down to 40-50 hours and take that pay cut?
 
! am being offered 400k for a fresh interventional grad right out of training at a private practice. It is RVU based and I will have the opportunity to earn a bonus if I exceed the target of about 8000. Does that seem like a fair offer?
 
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! am being offered 400k for a fresh interventional grad right out of training at a private practice. It is RVU based and I will have the opportunity to earn a bonus if I exceed the target of about 8000. Does that seem like a fair offer?
i thought you guys would get higher comp/wrvu... $50 ain't bad, but it ain't good.
 
Yeah that was my take on it too. :I
Well, it really depends on where it is. If it's in a tier 1 city, then count your lucky stars you even got an offer. If it's tier 3 or lower (or even small town), then it's probably not the best offer...
 
How is the job market for non-invasive cardiologist in a city like Seattle? The starting salary and options? Thanks
 
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