Comparing Southern California FT offers

[GasPassinAssassin]

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I've checked out a few groups in the SoCal area. Would appreciate some advice. Not interested in Locums.

The santa monica group has been on here a lot, and everyone seems to hate on it, but it still seems better than some of the other private groups i've talked to.

Buena Vista in burbank. they say 55-60 hours a week, 6 weeks vacation, 4 overnights a month, 2 weekends of some type of work. they gave a range of 500-800k depending how much you work. stipend amounts seem weak, but there is bonus RVU incentive to work nights and weekends.

Cedars estimates 500-600k. call q10

Glendale adventist and white memorial. $290/hour with pretty good stipends

Henry Mayo and vituity $300/hour with a lot of flexibility and decent stipends

Huntington in pasadena seems really nice. group is pretty young and chill. good neighborhood

Kaiser seems pretty desparate

anyone else looking around socal with some recommendations or thoughts on these hospitals?

 

[ucladoc2b]

Cedars is higher than that for general

 

[Ketaqueen]

I agree, Cedars will be higher than that. I hear they've been changing a lot. Might be good, might be bad.

I work at Kaiser. They're all a little bit different. The good is that it is chill and they got a decent retirement pension. Best if you plan to stay 30 years. Not good if you plan to leave before 10 years.

The group that works at Glendale Adventist also covers a lot of other hospitals. If you go with them, you got options on where to work and live.

I'd run far away from that Buena Vista group at Burbank. They just had 5 people leave at once. Couple of the guys I did residency with used to be there. They worked so hard and made less than you would think because of all the waiting around. According to them, the group leaders act like dictators. The group has no power and the administrators, surgeons, and even the nurses boss them around. They had to wait hours not getting paid for surgeons to come start cases at 9 or 11pm. And there are some surgeons that are slower than residents if that's even possible.

When they calculated their hourly rates per time in the hospital it was very low.

 

[Status Sciaticus]

Is 800-1M doable in a CA city like SF/LA/Calabassas?

 

[ucladoc2b]

Is 800-1M doable in a CA city like SF/LA/Calabassas?

With certain jobs it is.

 

[cchoukal]

Is 800-1M doable in a CA city like SF/LA/Calabassas?

you could look up individual salary numbers for faculty at UCSF and UCLA and see that in 2023, 650-700 was commonplace, so in 2025, I'd guess 800 was achievable.

 

[DesiredMemberName?]

Is 800-1M doable in a CA city like SF/LA/Calabassas?

Yes.

 

[aneftp]

I can’t speak for UCSF but those numbers aren’t commonplace for the Southern California UCs.



Yes but you’ll either have to work very hard at one of the better groups around or need the relationships that open doors for individual deals or facility ownership.

It’s weird. My brother gave up his private practice to go with the hospital in LA (like prime LA , as prime as u can get). Hospital punished him by forcing him to give up his 650k private practice blended units income and shoveling 1 million a year down his throat last year. So he’s definitely taking it up the butt with the hospital taking over lol. He does work hard. Probably 55-60 hr a week. But around the same as he was in his private group.

But u are right. It varies by location and who u know and what payment structure u can get. But 700-800k is pretty normal these days with a full workload schedule and 7 weeks off.

 

[LMAallDay]

I'm looking for some insight into the LA job market too, particularly between LA and IE.

On Gaswork, I see Kaiser, Pomona/Allied, Temecula/Anesthesia Works, Whittier/PIH, and Riverside/Renew in addition to the above, but not much else.

Seems LA/SoCal pay has improved recently? I became a traveller a few years ago, income >$1M every year, don't work that hard, very rare weekend call, much much less call overall, go on vacation whenever I want. But importantly, now much happier, I was extremely miserable at my old full-time LA job at crappy hospitals with too numerous crappy calls and extremely crappy pay.

I've been getting a nagging idea, maybe dumb, in my head to come back home to LA to a permanent job now that pay gap has decreased. But not sure if I can go back to a regular full time job with calls and OB and less vacation..

 

[aneftp]

I'm looking for some insight into the LA job market too, particularly between LA and IE.

On Gaswork, I see Kaiser, Pomona/Allied, Temecula/Anesthesia Works, Whittier/PIH, and Riverside/Renew in addition to the above, but not much else.

Seems LA/SoCal pay has improved recently? I became a traveller a few years ago, income >$1M every year, don't work that hard, very rare weekend call, much much less call overall, go on vacation whenever I want. But importantly, now much happier, I was extremely miserable at my old full-time LA job at crappy hospitals with too numerous crappy calls and extremely crappy pay.

I've been getting a nagging idea, maybe dumb, in my head to come back home to LA to a permanent job now that pay gap has decreased. But not sure if I can go back to a regular full time job with calls and OB and less vacation..

It is absolutely dumb idea to go back full time. Do u have kids under age 18? A spouse who wants u home? Aging parent in Southern California?

Lonely?

If the answer to any of these questions is no. Than skip full time work anywhere.

 

[GasPassinAssassin]

I'm looking for some insight into the LA job market too, particularly between LA and IE.

On Gaswork, I see Kaiser, Pomona/Allied, Temecula/Anesthesia Works, Whittier/PIH, and Riverside/Renew in addition to the above, but not much else.

Seems LA/SoCal pay has improved recently? I became a traveller a few years ago, income >$1M every year, don't work that hard, very rare weekend call, much much less call overall, go on vacation whenever I want. But importantly, now much happier, I was extremely miserable at my old full-time LA job at crappy hospitals with too numerous crappy calls and extremely crappy pay.

I've been getting a nagging idea, maybe dumb, in my head to come back home to LA to a permanent job now that pay gap has decreased. But not sure if I can go back to a regular full time job with calls and OB and less vacation..

I met a bunch of people that are working at these private practice groups, and also a lot more that USED TO work for these groups. The feedback is pretty much all bad.

The places like in Burbank that are RVU based don't put any value on your time. You might spend 12 hours in the hospital and only end up doing 6 or 7 hours of work. The surgeons have complete control over your life. Now with the political landscape changing and continued cuts, the weak private groups will end up losing stipends or getting them cut and then income will drop and drop or you have to work much harder to equal what you used to make.

 

[GasPassinAssassin]

I agree, Cedars will be higher than that. I hear they've been changing a lot. Might be good, might be bad.

I work at Kaiser. They're all a little bit different. The good is that it is chill and they got a decent retirement pension. Best if you plan to stay 30 years. Not good if you plan to leave before 10 years.

The group that works at Glendale Adventist also covers a lot of other hospitals. If you go with them, you got options on where to work and live.

I'd run far away from that Buena Vista group at Burbank. They just had 5 people leave at once. Couple of the guys I did residency with used to be there. They worked so hard and made less than you would think because of all the waiting around. According to them, the group leaders act like dictators. The group has no power and the administrators, surgeons, and even the nurses boss them around. They had to wait hours not getting paid for surgeons to come start cases at 9 or 11pm. And there are some surgeons that are slower than residents if that's even possible.

When they calculated their hourly rates per time in the hospital it was very low.

Thanks for the info.

I talked to some people that used to work there during my interviews and heard the same thing. Half the day seems like it gets wasted waiting for turnover or surgeons. The amount you make per time spent in the hospital sounded pathetic

 

[Ketaqueen]

It’s weird. My brother gave up his private practice to go with the hospital in LA (like prime LA , as prime as u can get). Hospital punished him by forcing him to give up his 650k private practice blended units income and shoveling 1 million a year down his throat last year. So he’s definitely taking it up the butt with the hospital taking over lol. He does work hard. Probably 55-60 hr a week. But around the same as he was in his private group.

But u are right. It varies by location and who u know and what payment structure u can get. But 700-800k is pretty normal these days with a full workload schedule and 7 weeks off.

Where is this?? Maybe Kaiser isn't such a great deal after all

 

[aneftp]

Where is this?? Maybe Kaiser isn't such a great deal after all

The city of Los Angeles. 10-12 min from West Hollywood.

 

[DesiredMemberName?]

Now with the political landscape changing and continued cuts, the weak private groups will end up losing stipends or getting them cut and then income will drop and drop or you have to work much harder to equal what you used to make.

Can you clarify what you mean here? Why are groups losing stipends or getting them cut?

If anything, I’m seeing stipend support increase pretty much everywhere to make up for reimbursement cuts.

 

[GasPassinAssassin]

Can you clarify what you mean here? Why are groups losing stipends or getting them cut?

If anything, I’m seeing stipend support increase pretty much everywhere to make up for reimbursement cuts.

These stipend cuts are being discussed at our hospital. THis is one of the reasons I may come back to California. First they added quality metrics to our stipends. We alwyas met them all, so they started changing the metrics to different things that were not under our control. And we still met them. Finally, they are telling us that "the economy" is challenging and they are likely going to be cutting our stipends. THe people in charge of the group are so weak and hardly put up any fight. When the group leaders are not strong, the group is weak and has no power. They get bullied by administration, so I am fully expecting our take-home to drop over the next couple years.

Wherever I would go after this, I would be looking to find a place where my time would be valued. Like the people out there are saying, we need to stop selling ourselves short and we need to know our worth. Our time is valuable and I am tired of bending over backwards for these hospital administrators to look good and collect their big fat paychecks.

Groups that get bullied by administrators and surgeons would be a deal-killer for me. Very inefficient, lots of waiting for stuff also a no. Will I find a perfect job? Probably not, but I am open to recommendations of course.


There was a discussion about this topic on another forum. This is the quote:

Hourly paid W2 employed doc here curious if other hospital employed groups have gotten wind of “need for cuts” or metric based payments due to the future impact of the big beautiful bill? Our ORs are very efficient and staffing is lean from the get go. We run mostly medical direction with 3-4:1 ratio. Our payer mix is largely Medicare and Medicaid.
We are seriously concerned with new leadership trying to tie our hourly payment to metrics which notoriously are awful at capturing value of care. We are about 95% medical direction and most of the metrics are reflecting intraop CRNA decision making for say PONV and opioid sparing anesthetics, yet proposal from the top may try to not only NOT bring us up to fair market pay but also try to cut essentially with the guise of impact of the big beautiful bill causing budgeting concerns.

Top contributor
Are you that stupid to believe cuts in anesthesia (for u). The amount of misinformation people believe from administration. I’m sorry I’m mans-planning all these anonymous posters. But get a grip on ur own self worth here. Remember you are the prize. Not them. The crnas are all laughing to the bank already. Hospital facilities fees keep going up and up. They try to guilt u into thinking anesthesia is “costing them money” and the fees hospitals are collecting are crazy. The “metrics “are simply fear mongering. Just go in. Do ur job. Get in and get out. "
Anonymous member dude or gal. U probably also belong to physician community Facebook group also. Get a grip on self worth. If they wanna cut ur rate. U all leave a mass exodus gets their attention real fast than metrics don’t mean jack. 90 min mac foot case. Anesthesia gets $200-600, surgeon gets $500, hospital gets 20k. Who do u think gets hurt most if they can’t run the OR without anesthesia. Think. U have extremely low self worth. I’m sorry. I gotta slap some common sense in some of u guys and gals here.

 

[ambiturner]

These stipend cuts are being discussed at our hospital. THis is one of the reasons I may come back to California. First they added quality metrics to our stipends. We alwyas met them all, so they started changing the metrics to different things that were not under our control. And we still met them. Finally, they are telling us that "the economy" is challenging and they are likely going to be cutting our stipends. THe people in charge of the group are so weak and hardly put up any fight. When the group leaders are not strong, the group is weak and has no power. They get bullied by administration, so I am fully expecting our take-home to drop over the next couple years.

Wherever I would go after this, I would be looking to find a place where my time would be valued. Like the people out there are saying, we need to stop selling ourselves short and we need to know our worth. Our time is valuable and I am tired of bending over backwards for these hospital administrators to look good and collect their big fat paychecks.

Groups that get bullied by administrators and surgeons would be a deal-killer for me. Very inefficient, lots of waiting for stuff also a no. Will I find a perfect job? Probably not, but I am open to recommendations of course.


There was a discussion about this topic on another forum. This is the quote:

Hourly paid W2 employed doc here curious if other hospital employed groups have gotten wind of “need for cuts” or metric based payments due to the future impact of the big beautiful bill? Our ORs are very efficient and staffing is lean from the get go. We run mostly medical direction with 3-4:1 ratio. Our payer mix is largely Medicare and Medicaid.
We are seriously concerned with new leadership trying to tie our hourly payment to metrics which notoriously are awful at capturing value of care. We are about 95% medical direction and most of the metrics are reflecting intraop CRNA decision making for say PONV and opioid sparing anesthetics, yet proposal from the top may try to not only NOT bring us up to fair market pay but also try to cut essentially with the guise of impact of the big beautiful bill causing budgeting concerns.

Top contributor
Are you that stupid to believe cuts in anesthesia (for u). The amount of misinformation people believe from administration. I’m sorry I’m mans-planning all these anonymous posters. But get a grip on ur own self worth here. Remember you are the prize. Not them. The crnas are all laughing to the bank already. Hospital facilities fees keep going up and up. They try to guilt u into thinking anesthesia is “costing them money” and the fees hospitals are collecting are crazy. The “metrics “are simply fear mongering. Just go in. Do ur job. Get in and get out. "
Anonymous member dude or gal. U probably also belong to physician community Facebook group also. Get a grip on self worth. If they wanna cut ur rate. U all leave a mass exodus gets their attention real fast than metrics don’t mean jack. 90 min mac foot case. Anesthesia gets $200-600, surgeon gets $500, hospital gets 20k. Who do u think gets hurt most if they can’t run the OR without anesthesia. Think. U have extremely low self worth. I’m sorry. I gotta slap some common sense in some of u guys and gals here.

Are you a private group receiving a stipend from the hospital? If this is the case I would always expect downward pressure on your stipends, and you can/should leave if they do it and the salary will magically rise again. Using future cuts that won’t be felt for at least a year as the reason for a cut is BS.

An employed group I eventually expect to feel some downward pressure but this will be based on salary survey data related to private groups taking a hit, so it will likely lag that market by a couple years.

 

[Ketaqueen]

Plus and minus with every type of job. Everyone just needs to find what works for themselves

 

[LMAallDay]

I met a bunch of people that are working at these private practice groups, and also a lot more that USED TO work for these groups. The feedback is pretty much all bad.

Before I left LA, I interviewed with a large private group in LA that's been discussed here in the past. From word of mouth reputation I knew they worked hard but thought they were paid decent. When they told me what the average income (based on units and call stipend) was, my jaw dropped because it was so low. Traveling for work in a week pays as much as they did in a month. They were also vague on first and second calls, weekend calls, and vacation time.

I recently talked to a LA group that pays hourly with daily guaranteed hours. The rate was about the same as traveling CRNAs, but lower when you factor in housing and paid malpractice insurance.

 

[aneftp]

Before I left LA, I interviewed with a large private group in LA that's been discussed here in the past. From word of mouth reputation I knew they worked hard but thought they were paid decent. When they told me what the average income (based on units and call stipend) was, my jaw dropped because it was so low. Traveling for work in a week pays as much as they did in a month. They were also vague on first and second calls, weekend calls, and vacation time.

I recently talked to a LA group that pays hourly with daily guaranteed hours. The rate was about the same as traveling CRNAs, but lower when you factor in housing and paid malpractice insurance.

Average true locums crnas (outside of real desirable metro area (la, bay area) range from $250-300/hr with 40 hr guranteeed. 1099.

I wouldn’t factor in travel and housing unless you are pocketing the difference or don’t even rent or own a home that you are currently paying for.

Unless you enjoy traveling and staying in random places. Most of pure 1099 locums I know have college age kids , single (or divorce). By pure 1099 locums I may 100% of their income from locums.

What exactly are you looking for?

 

[GassYous]

Before I left LA, I interviewed with a large private group in LA that's been discussed here in the past. From word of mouth reputation I knew they worked hard but thought they were paid decent. When they told me what the average income (based on units and call stipend) was, my jaw dropped because it was so low. Traveling for work in a week pays as much as they did in a month. They were also vague on first and second calls, weekend calls, and vacation time.

I recently talked to a LA group that pays hourly with daily guaranteed hours. The rate was about the same as traveling CRNAs, but lower when you factor in housing and paid malpractice insurance.

Can you be more specific?

 

[Ketaqueen]

Before I left LA, I interviewed with a large private group in LA that's been discussed here in the past. From word of mouth reputation I knew they worked hard but thought they were paid decent. When they told me what the average income (based on units and call stipend) was, my jaw dropped because it was so low. Traveling for work in a week pays as much as they did in a month. They were also vague on first and second calls, weekend calls, and vacation time.

I recently talked to a LA group that pays hourly with daily guaranteed hours. The rate was about the same as traveling CRNAs, but lower when you factor in housing and paid malpractice insurance.

For real! A couple of these groups have such a bad reputation with the local residencies. Nobody goes to them. My friends who took a chance had instant regret but stayed a year just so they didnt have to pay back the sign-on bonus.

Factoring income per time spent at work, they were making less per hour than CRNA'S. I feel sorry for the people in these groups. It's like they don't even look at what they could be making. On top of that, they had to deal with so much sh**.

 

[aneftp]

For real! A couple of these groups have such a bad reputation with the local residencies. Nobody goes to them. My friends who took a chance had instant regret but stayed a year just so they didnt have to pay back the sign-on bonus.

Factoring income per time spent at work, they were making less per hour than CRNA'S. I feel sorry for the people in these groups. It's like they don't even look at what they could be making. On top of that, they had to deal with so much sh**.

Going hourly is the best way to protect yourself these days. Nothing better than getting paid to sit around and waiting for cases.

Crnas run laps around salary MDs on this.

 

[Maverikk]

Going hourly is the best way to protect yourself these days. Nothing better than getting paid to sit around and waiting for cases.

Crnas run laps around salary MDs on this.

Yup, I know a few that do RVU in socal, MD only rate hasn't changed in 5 years, guys grinding the gears for essentially 250-300/hr for solo MD...but they're all established there, mortgages/kids can't leave, still accepting that, pays the bills and they don't want to travel, don't realize crnas are getting the same

 

[aneftp]

Yup, I know a few that do RVU in socal, MD only rate hasn't changed in 5 years, guys grinding the gears for essentially 250-300/hr for solo MD...but they're all established there, mortgages/kids can't leave, still accepting that, pays the bills and they don't want to travel, don't realize crnas are getting the same

It’s ok to make $250/300 a hour as long as you aren’t doing much work

I think people focus so much on hourly rate they don’t focus on the entire picture. Sure you want to make $400/450/hrs plus do very little work.

So it’s a balancing act. I’ve worked for $300/hr. Average 4-8 cases for 12 hrs. Less than 10 min from my house. Easy. Crnas supervision. 1:2 sometimes 1:1

I’ve worked for 12 hr continuously. Solo. Staff rushing you. Less than 15 min in turnover from time you leave the OR room. $400/hr.

Tell me what one sounds better?

Now if you are solo working continuously for 12 hrs straight for $250/hr day after day. Yeah F that. I’d move on.

And you are right. People are tied to the area for family reasons so have to make compromises.

I went back up north to visit my old hospital and friends when I was fresh new grad. Those guys are hospital employee making 550k/gentlemen agreement 50 hrs a week. 8 weeks off.
The simple math works out to $250/hr for the weeks and hours worked. Sure. Some BS “benefits”. That may add up to 20k healthcare and 20k retirement but most offer the same benefits.

You want to have a w2 job that on paper averages around $390-410/hr w2 when factoring in hours and vacation

700k/10weeks off/40 hr inclusive of beeper or in house calls. That lessens the temptations for staff to look for other 1099 gigs because that’s a fair wage these day. That averages out to $416/hr. Somewhere in that ballpark

That’s why night float docs who make 500k and work an average of 7 x 16 hrs every 2 weeks and 26 weeks off have a much better deal than daytime docs who work 36 hrs for the same 500k but grind it out with 10 weeks off.

 

[LMAallDay]

One of my sites is $300/hr and I get 100% of availability booked (important when I can't get booked at a more lucrative/busy site when the regular MDs are on vacation) and never been cancelled. A lot of the time sit around doing nothing or waiting for cases and add-ons. Today between 7a-7p I was in the OR for two hours, then ate breakfast, lunch, took a nap, and woke up for snack/dinner. Then at 7p on call collecting hourly rate plus stipend doing some easy/boring ortho fractures. Tomorrow is another 12h guaranteed shift, but I have no cases/room assigned so just again sitting around waiting.

Problem is sometimes I do wish to sleep in my own bed instead of hotel's.

 

[Ketaqueen]

So it sounds like all the full time PP jobs around Los Angeles are going to be bad in terms of efficiency? Solo MD model is going to be just a lot of grinding out the days and trading time for money that works out to be around a CRNA hourly pay?

 

[ucladoc2b]

So it sounds like all the full time PP jobs around Los Angeles are going to be bad in terms of efficiency? Solo MD model is going to be just a lot of grinding out the days and trading time for money that works out to be around a CRNA hourly pay?

Efficiency? Maybe. The trend is starting to go away from PP.

Pay? Has improved quite a bit. Probably $300 is your base rate for day work only here.

 

[USCTrojan11]

One of my sites is $300/hr and I get 100% of availability booked (important when I can't get booked at a more lucrative/busy site when the regular MDs are on vacation) and never been cancelled. A lot of the time sit around doing nothing or waiting for cases and add-ons. Today between 7a-7p I was in the OR for two hours, then ate breakfast, lunch, took a nap, and woke up for snack/dinner. Then at 7p on call collecting hourly rate plus stipend doing some easy/boring ortho fractures. Tomorrow is another 12h guaranteed shift, but I have no cases/room assigned so just again sitting around waiting.

Problem is sometimes I do wish to sleep in my own bed instead of hotel's.

Jealous, mind sharing a lead/contact?