I keep hearing the productivity model for hospitalist jobs the way to go? Some say the best in base salary with productivity attached on top. Just trying to get a feel for how things are with the jobs because I'm starting to look now.
thanks ahead guys-
Hi Jok, was at an airport sandwich shop the other day and my wife asked the lady at the register which was better, the tuna or chicken sandwich... Frustratingly, the lady asked my wife if she liked tuna or chicken better... Thinking my answer is similar
🙂
I work under a base salary with production incentive. In my opinion and in my case, there is no difference btw a job with a base salary and a pure "eat what you kill" set up. The base salary looks nice and I suppose makes you feel good that "if all else fails, I'll make X this year" but my base salary could be $1 and I'd still have made what I made last year.
Reasons to choose a productivity model"
-The group has a history of steady, growing business. You don't want to join this model if the group has to claw and beg for every admission they get... you simply will not make much money and it would be hard to plan ahead in terms of finances.
- You need the motivation of being paid for every encounter, in order to not be hateful and pissy when you're called for an admission.
- You don't want to answer to "the man". Most salaried positions are either for ridiculously low amts of money or require that you ask "how high" every time the hospital admin tells you to jump.
-You want to make as much money as possible... Lifestyle is a secondary concern
Reasons to choose a salaried position:
-stable knowledge of what you'll make each year
-typically these positions are augmented meaning that you might generate 180,000/yr but you'll get paid 200,000 b/c the hospital is covering the loss due to need. This typically is a gig that's advertised as having a patient cap.
-preference for lifestyle. Again, generally speaking, salaried spots come with guaranteed time off, patient caps, etc. Easier to plan life around it, but it comes at the expense of making a higher salary.
-dont mind QI type projects. Salaried positions from a hospital will usually come with the above guarantees but require that you are an active problem solver, whether its LOS, ER throughput etc.
The way I look at it is that I enjoy the productivity model I'm on while I'm relatively young. As I get older, I'll likely move toward a more family friendly salaried format that pays significantly less but gives me more time off and less night call. I'd never advocate for a purely salaried position unless the position is very subsidized and you'd never have a chance of making more than your salary given your amt of shifts, patient caps etc.
In any job, you need to know how much you're worth... Typically, if I average the billing for everything I do in a month (H/P, dc note, progress note etc), I come up with $85/$90 per encounter. If you have 400 encounters in a month (20 pts/day and 20 shifts/month), you're worth $34,000/month. Billing overhead is generally 8%, med malpractice is ~ 4%, thus with no other peripheral benefits, and bear bone costs, you should be worth about 29k/month. Run the numbers, figure what meets your needs.
Best
