EMCare & Contracts

[Derek]

I have an upcoming interview with an EM group, but am a little confused as they have EMCare as their managing party.

As far as I can tell if I were to sign a contract it would be through EMCare and not through the EM physicians group. Does this mean that they have signed over all of their profits to EMCare?

The salary is an hourly wage plus incentives yet to be disclosed (malpractice is covered). Is this standard and what are the incentive plans that EMCare likes to use?

Do physicians that are managed by groups like EMCare still have profit sharing among the partners in the group and how long does it usually take a rookie to reach partner status?

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[bartleby]

First off, there are a lot of "picking a job" resources available on the 'net, particularly through EMRA (emra.org), which will cover all of your questions and more in a lot more depth than I'm gonna go into.

Having said that, EMCare is one of the corporate EM practices which basically hire you, pay your benefits, and give you a salary. Some of the mid-sized groups (EMP) give you an "ownership" share and share more information to some degree, but all of the corporate practices basically involve having the shots called from up on high in the bureaucracy. Some groups give the underlings varying amounts of input.

You should NOT take a job with one of these groups if you want to be in a group of ten docs who vote democratically and make decisions locally about everything from your benefits plan to the color of scrubs you're going to wear. If don't mind the feeling of being a cog in the larger wheel of EM, that's fine... there's definitely something to be said for showing up to work and getting a paycheck with a minimum of management and hassles. But just go in with your eyes open, by all means.

 

[docB]

I agree with the stuff bartleby said. I work for an Emcare afiliated group so I have some first hand knowledge. All the money is collected by Emcare and then paid back (minus a portion that is Emcare's cut) to the group. They don't care how you divide it up once it comes back to the local group. In our group those decisions have some democratic flavor to them but the directors essentially have the last say. Emcare and the other corporate groups have their good points but if you really want a true democratic group with real profit sharing and a meaningful partnership track don't go corporate.