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- Mar 24, 2006
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Early in my career, I had the pleasure of learning a great deal about the complex interface of labor and employment law and hospital employment.
The bottom line is, physicians have very little rights as hospital employees-"Sorry no one ever taught you guys that in residency."
By the way, your average labor and employment attorney is not well-versed in the multitude of nuances relating to hospital employment.
Deal with it, or form a union.
The upside side, is that I walked away feeling pretty confident about my ability to review and negotiate key aspects of employment agreements, you know, the bread and butter stuff-restrictive covenants, terminations clauses, and so forth.
In a basic and obvious sense (without getting into regional hospital corporate culture, cough, cough, eastern seaboard), employers in larger, more "desirable" cities tend to be less flexible, more one-sided in their employment contract terms, lower paying, and with distinctly, corporate flavors.
As more and more physicians have become hospital employees, some of the common red flags of course are, "Watch out for places that have an aggressive business model," and, "Watch out for places that have a high physician turnover rate" (ok, so these are beyond obvious and tend to go hand-in-hand).
That being said, where do we draw the line with what feels like, corporate peasantry?
...Would you ever sign on the dotted line for a moonlighting gig (mind you, typical lower hourly pay in a large city and ridiculous non-compete terms) where the "physician" manual says, termination for CAUSE includes but is not limited to X, Y, Z (really bad obvious for-cause stuff like having your license suspended, lying, cheating)?
Also, "We (the hospital) can change the terms of the manual at anytime. Thanks."
...I didn't bother to go after the non-compete stuff because I know they're not really enforceable when they fail to include geographic or temporal limitations. Still, if you ever have a dispute, you'd have to cough up a retainer to make that point-wasn't thrilled--but let the non-compete BS slide.
When I asked that they amend the for-cause termination issue and limit for-cause termination to the generally horrible events listed in the manual...and so that I wasn't signing something that said, "If we don't like the same sports team as you, you can be terminated for-cause, i.e. we can destroy your entire reputation,"...
they pulled the, "We cannot modify the physician manual for you" BS, and generally acted as though no one (in their ginormous health system) has ever protested such terms.
So I backed out.
Who writes "physician manuals" for big health systems, "physician" administrators looking out for fellow physician employees, or senior health VP's?
Are most folks really agreeing to these kinds of terms with potential hospital employers?
Are we really that lowly when we work for hospitals? Do our numbers in hospitals mean nothing because we value the stability, the benefits, and prioritize paying student loans/mortgages over protecting our reputations? Really, without a reputation, you won't be able to appreciate stability and benefits.
The bottom line is, physicians have very little rights as hospital employees-"Sorry no one ever taught you guys that in residency."
By the way, your average labor and employment attorney is not well-versed in the multitude of nuances relating to hospital employment.
Deal with it, or form a union.
The upside side, is that I walked away feeling pretty confident about my ability to review and negotiate key aspects of employment agreements, you know, the bread and butter stuff-restrictive covenants, terminations clauses, and so forth.
In a basic and obvious sense (without getting into regional hospital corporate culture, cough, cough, eastern seaboard), employers in larger, more "desirable" cities tend to be less flexible, more one-sided in their employment contract terms, lower paying, and with distinctly, corporate flavors.
As more and more physicians have become hospital employees, some of the common red flags of course are, "Watch out for places that have an aggressive business model," and, "Watch out for places that have a high physician turnover rate" (ok, so these are beyond obvious and tend to go hand-in-hand).
That being said, where do we draw the line with what feels like, corporate peasantry?
...Would you ever sign on the dotted line for a moonlighting gig (mind you, typical lower hourly pay in a large city and ridiculous non-compete terms) where the "physician" manual says, termination for CAUSE includes but is not limited to X, Y, Z (really bad obvious for-cause stuff like having your license suspended, lying, cheating)?
Also, "We (the hospital) can change the terms of the manual at anytime. Thanks."
...I didn't bother to go after the non-compete stuff because I know they're not really enforceable when they fail to include geographic or temporal limitations. Still, if you ever have a dispute, you'd have to cough up a retainer to make that point-wasn't thrilled--but let the non-compete BS slide.
When I asked that they amend the for-cause termination issue and limit for-cause termination to the generally horrible events listed in the manual...and so that I wasn't signing something that said, "If we don't like the same sports team as you, you can be terminated for-cause, i.e. we can destroy your entire reputation,"...
they pulled the, "We cannot modify the physician manual for you" BS, and generally acted as though no one (in their ginormous health system) has ever protested such terms.
So I backed out.
Who writes "physician manuals" for big health systems, "physician" administrators looking out for fellow physician employees, or senior health VP's?
Are most folks really agreeing to these kinds of terms with potential hospital employers?
Are we really that lowly when we work for hospitals? Do our numbers in hospitals mean nothing because we value the stability, the benefits, and prioritize paying student loans/mortgages over protecting our reputations? Really, without a reputation, you won't be able to appreciate stability and benefits.
