First Interview

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CajunGas

CajunGas

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I have a job interview in a few weeks. It is for combined anesthesiology and critical care position in a small town. The town 30k has a big draw area. They would like me to work in the ICU as well as the OR. What are peoples experience with small town anesthesia/CC practice? Any good interview questions or tips? Any idea on ballpark salary? Thank you
 
CajunGas said:
I have a job interview in a few weeks. It is for combined anesthesiology and critical care position in a small town. The town 30k has a big draw area. They would like me to work in the ICU as well as the OR. What are peoples experience with small town anesthesia/CC practice? Any good interview questions or tips? Any idea on ballpark salary? Thank you
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Just a couple of tips with the job. Just make sure to get an idea of how long the group has had the contract. I believe stability is very important. As far as salary, it is supply and demand depending on where you are. If you have to work 7 days a week, 300k/year may be low, but if you only have to work 3 days/wk, then 300k/year would be highly reasonable. Where I am, Locums guys make about $175/ hour, so figure you work 2000 hours per year it comes out to aboue 350k-375k or so. Ask if you have to contribute to profit sharing. Ask about vacation and when you as the new guy can take it. Make sure the insurance pays your tail which would be an occurance policy, not a claims made policy. Ask if you get an profit sharing and if there is a 401k. And ask if you get W2 for taxes verses 1099. W2 versus 1099 doesn't necessarily mean one is better than the other, it is just that I would want more if it is a 1099. And ask how you get paid. Is it eat what you kill, or is it a set salary.

If it is a set salary, ask how many hours. Maybe try to set a fee for each hour you work over a specified number of hours if you haveto work extra, otherwise you may end up working for free like a lot of people I know.

Some may pay disability insurance so be sure to find all of these things out. Best of luck with everything and congrats.
 
CajunGas said:
I have a job interview in a few weeks. It is for combined anesthesiology and critical care position in a small town. The town 30k has a big draw area. They would like me to work in the ICU as well as the OR. What are peoples experience with small town anesthesia/CC practice? Any good interview questions or tips? Any idea on ballpark salary? Thank you
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Do anyone share their Interview Experiences,Iam doing specialisation in Anesthesia in drugs.
 
Here is the situation. Interviewed with a medium community hospital for icu and anesthesia. 2 weeks of icu and 2 weeks of anesthesia a month. They would like me to join the anesthesia group which is pp and has 2 docs 10 crnas. Great payor mix. The other option I have is to become a hospital employee and work along side the anesthesiology private group in the or and do my own icu thing. In the rural Midwest is 450k reasonable? Higher or lower. 8 weeks vaca.
 
2 weeks of ICU per month is a full time ICU position. What is the ICU call? If you are taking 3 or more calls a week during those ICU weeks you are getting hosed with the extra Anesthesia stuff.

How many beds in the ICU will you be covering? Is it a closed unit or are you a consultant? Acuity level? If you manage or 15 ICU patients per day in a medium to high acuity setting in a area of the country no one else wants to be i would expect $300,000-400,000 salary plus full benefits. This is for 24 weeks per year of CCM with call every other night.

The pay is fine only if your call combined (anesthesia and critical care) is only once a week. If your call is more frequent i would ask for at least one week off a month. You'll get burned out otherwise. To rephrase don't ask for more money, ask for more time off.

As far as being with the anesthesia group versus the hospital ask yourself which has the better long term outlook. Could you become partner owner of the group? If so your bargaining power for your group will be pretty high with the hospital if you are providing invaluable ICU coverage. In this way you could leverage the hospital for a more lucrative and longer term contract for the anesthesia group. If you don't become part of the anesthesia group they could always stop asking you for your services/higher someone else and then you would only be doing critical care.
 
cincincyreds said:
. And ask how you get paid. Is it eat what you kill, or is it a set salary.
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This. I know it seems too blunt, but they are expecting you to ask. Get a very clear picture of how you get paid. You say that they have a good payor mix, but do they pay on a blended rate or is it totally eat what you kill?

Also, who makes the schedule, and how call is divvied up. Ask to see a call schedule.

If you should be looking for anything, it should be transparency. Everybody should know how much everyone else is working. They should be upfront and honest with you about the group's business dealings, and what directions they are trying to take the group in.

Take the details of your deal to someone with more experience that you trust and ask them what they think.
 
The ICU call is every night during the week and home call. You are not asked to come in. In house stuff is handled by a hospitalist. The ICU is ten beds and a couple of step down beds if I want them. The unit is open mandatory consult. Sounds like I should be asking for a week off a month and maybe one Anesthesia week with no call?

There is the potential with partnership in the group. Don't know the buy in yet or time to partner. My position has been in this particular area of the country there should be no buy in for me or time of diminished salary. I think that I could make the groups position in the hospital so strong by providing ICU services in addition to OR. You can't get rid of both of us right? If they don't give me what I want the offer was extended to do ICU and anesthesia outside their group ( which in my mind would weaken their position)

As far as the getting paid part its eat what you kills plus a hospital stipend. Right now the anesthesiologists are working every other week.
 
So if the anesthesiologists are working every other week then doing 2 weeks of anesthesia is full time anesthesia. What are they making doing that?

I hope you see that they are asking you to do 2 full time positions by working 2 weeks or ICU and 2 weeks of Anesthesia per month.

Home call is all about how many calls you get a night. I take home call for ICU and ill tell you it only takes one patient to be on the phone all night. I wouldnt take home call everynight for a week straight unless i was rarely getting called at night (ie 1 phone call per week). My average home call i am up about 3 hours every night getting phone calls.

Its up to you whether you want to do 1 week of anesthesia or 1 week of CCM per month but i would say you have to scale one of the 2 positions into half time. Is anyone in the group currently doing that schedule? Are they happy?
 
So this week we are going to sit down and hammer out some details on this. My guess is that doing 2 weeks of anesthesia per month they are making 500k with the payor mix. They also employ all the crnas as well.

You are right about the 2 fulltime positions. I think CC is my way to get my foot in the door here and gives me a good bargaining position. There is no way right now to know how busy home call will be. The acquity is low now but with my addition they were hoping to stop shipping out their sick patients. I am reassured I would not have to come in because of the in house hospitalist. He should deflect most calls as well. The only 2 guys in the group or doing 1 week on one off. No one is doing 2 weeks of cc and 1 week of anesthesia.
 
So here is a quick update.
I opted against joining the anesthesia group above. Instead I will join the hospital as an employee and have my time leased to the anesthesia group.

Right now we are discussing money. I based my starting point in negotiations on the 75th percentile of mgma data for the midwest for anesthesia. The hospital wants to go by the median salary for a STARTING physician. They say I need to build volume. My point was that that volume is already built in with an anesthesia group who is neck deep in work and a ICU currently staffed with hospitalist, why should I have to?

I get a number from them this week, but what is the mgma number for median starting anesthesia salary so I know what to expect.

Besides that the remainder of the package is great. A little loan repayment, stipend, signing bonus.
 
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