Job 1 day a week

[podfam3008]

Hello friends,
Does anyone have any ideas on jobs that may be available for 1 day a week? I have one day a week available with my current position (can't be in the clinic on this day due to other providers being there that day as our clinic time is split, schedule has been like this for years), and I have been looking for ways to make extra income that day. I did nursing homes and home care for years on that day working for a mobile company (hated it), and stopped doing that a couple years back. Tried reaching out to family doctors to work at their clinic for a day, but somehow that kept falling through (their patient load/need wasn't there). Does anyone have any other ideas? Should I maybe reach out to an Endocrinology clinic/Vascular clinic? Ask other Podiatry colleagues if they need extra help? I did reach out to a couple wound care centers nearby, and unfortunately they would only take their hospital-owned docs. Any advice would be appreciated.

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[Boba Foot]

Can you expand on your experience with doing mobile pod? Are there any companies that are better than others? I’ve been thinking about it lately to potentially supplement income while doing a startup practice. I figure it can’t be worse than doing part time for a 🦖

 

[wakaflocka88]

You can try contacting local hospital or MSG groups that have podiatry and see if they have available part time pool work. Sometimes they may be back logged on diabetic care/ingrown nails and you can knock those out in a day while helping them decrease the back log of patients. I also know of pods that do part time work at a VA as well. Can’t hurt to give these a shot.

 

[Scrantonicity]

Could talk to some of the podiatry groups around your area and see if they would be willing to hire you for a day a week as an independent contractor...maybe a solo practitioner that would like a day off a week--and could still reap some benefits of your work (while hopefully paying you fairly).

 

[DYK343]

Can you expand on your experience with doing mobile pod? Are there any companies that are better than others? I’ve been thinking about it lately to potentially supplement income while doing a startup practice. I figure it can’t be worse than doing part time for a 🦖

@Creflo was doing this as an independent. He was providing updates for awhile but stopped. Can search for those or hope he chimes in.

 

[podfam3008]

You can try contacting local hospital or MSG groups that have podiatry and see if they have available part time pool work. Sometimes they may be back logged on diabetic care/ingrown nails and you can knock those out in a day while helping them decrease the back log of patients. I also know of pods that do part time work at a VA as well. Can’t hurt to give these a shot.

Thanks for the input. I am in a semi-rural area. I contacted a couple hospitals (CEO's and physician recruiting) and they said "there isn't need at this current time for Podiatry part-time." Haven't tried Multi specialty groups. I don't know of any nearby that have hired pods. I did also contact a few Podiatrists near me in the past couple of years but they stated they at least needed 2-3 days of commitment. Ugh it's just so frustrating.

 

[podfam3008]

Can you expand on your experience with doing mobile pod? Are there any companies that are better than others? I’ve been thinking about it lately to potentially supplement income while doing a startup practice. I figure it can’t be worse than doing part time for a 🦖

The amount of back-breaking work you do to get only 40% of collections (while paying for your own assistant and supplies) is not worth it in my opinion. I did it for years on my day off. It was just not worth the few thousand bucks I made by the end of the year. After a few years of doing it, I promised I'd never go back. Some companies may be better than others, but compensation is not good. There are multiple threads about this.

 

[heybrother]

Are there any rural/critical access hospitals near you ie. an hour away? Those hospitals might be more interested in a 1-2x a month visiting doctor doing a clinic.

 

[Feli]

Are there any rural/critical access hospitals near you ie. an hour away? Those hospitals might be more interested in a 1-2x a month visiting doctor doing a clinic.

You can try contacting local hospital or MSG groups that have podiatry and see if they have available part time pool work. ...

^^^ Yes, this is the way to go. I have know a few docs who arranged hourly or daily pay for doing a clinic for MSG or hospitals. That can be a win-win to keep your financial head above water until the PP gets going.

The nursing home and house call stuff really only has two types: slow and won't amount to much with your % pay, and the other type with fraudulent billing you don't want to be associated with (and might not even see much of the $). Like you said, you hated it. There are some that do ok with mobile stuff when they run/arrange it themselves or have a decent employer, but that's a full time job to get the max efficiency and handle on the EMR and system typically.

 

[Boba Foot]

The amount of back-breaking work you do to get only 40% of collections (while paying for your own assistant and supplies) is not worth it in my opinion. I did it for years on my day off. It was just not worth the few thousand bucks I made by the end of the year. After a few years of doing it, I promised I'd never go back. Some companies may be better than others, but compensation is not good. There are multiple threads about this.

Would you mind PMing me with the company so I know which one to avoid?

 

[DYK343]

^^^ Yes, this is the way to go. I have know a few docs who arranged hourly or daily pay for doing a clinic for MSG or hospitals. That can be a win-win to keep your financial head above water until the PP gets going.

The nursing home and house call stuff really only has two types: slow and won't amount to much with your % pay, and the other type with fraudulent billing you don't want to be associated with (and might not even see much of the $). Like you said, you hated it. There are some that do ok with mobile stuff when they run/arrange it themselves or have a decent employer, but that's a full time job to get the max efficiency and handle on the EMR and system typically.

I never understood how they get nursing homes to qualify nearly every patient there. They just line them up and the DPM goes room to room cutting every nail that wants them done.

Medicare has pretty clear requirements and I always wondered how DPMs get around this in the nursing home. Im sure a lot of them do qualify but if youre being strict on the guidelines and following exactly as written there will be a lot who dont.

Maybe medicare just turns their back to this type of work. I dunno. But I would be fearful to get myself into that situation even if it paid really well.

 

[dtrack22]

I always wondered how DPMs get around this in the nursing home.

There is definitely fudging going on if someone is doing a majority of people in a nursing home, but there are a lot more people who meet guidelines than you might think. Just look at what it takes to hit the Q9 modifier in your MACs routine foot care LCD. A handful of subjective things that most old people would complain about, and then a handful of clinical exam findings that most people who are in skilled nursing facilities have. Skilled nursing facilities are not retirement communities or even assisted living facilities. These people are usually pretty sick and unhealthy. Combine that with a modifier that isn’t really that hard to hit, and you got a lot of patients who qualify without anyone lying.

All that being said, I guarantee you there are individual podiatrists and big companies who purposefully/knowingly commit fraud on a regular basis. I just think it’s much more likely to happen in an assisted living facility or memory care center (which you get sent to if you work for one of the big contractors like Healthdrive), than it is at an actual SNF.

 

[air bud]

Thanks for the input. I am in a semi-rural area. I contacted a couple hospitals (CEO's and physician recruiting) and they said "there isn't need at this current time for Podiatry part-time." Haven't tried Multi specialty groups. I don't know of any nearby that have hired pods. I did also contact a few Podiatrists near me in the past couple of years but they stated they at least needed 2-3 days of commitment. Ugh it's just so frustrating.

this CEO is a *****. podiatry part time exists EVERYWHERE. Your job is to change his/her mind.

 

[JewOnThis]

I was in your position at one point. The truth is finding a podiatry job with msg and hospitals are extremely difficult. I have talked to a few CEOs and their wordings are “podiatry doesn’t bring in a lot of money like orthopedics”. Good luck though.

 

[air bud]

I was in your position at one point. The truth is finding a podiatry job with msg and hospitals are extremely difficult. I have talked to a few CEOs and their wordings are “podiatry doesn’t bring in a lot of money like orthopedics”. Good luck though.

Relative to ortho yes....but again any hospital CEO that doesn't think there is value in adding podiatry is a terrible CEO

 

[HardRoadPaved]

Relative to ortho yes....but again any hospital CEO that doesn't think there is value in adding podiatry is a terrible CEO

Most CEO are non-practicing MDs that have an older memory of podiatry, chipping and clipping. Many positions I see offered are non-surgical as also not to start a turf war with ortho.

 

[DYK343]

Relative to ortho yes....but again any hospital CEO that doesn't think there is value in adding podiatry is a terrible CEO

The amount of revenue I bring in is criminal compared to my paycheck. And I get paid pretty well.

 

[air bud]

Most CEO are non-practicing MDs that have an older memory of podiatry, chipping and clipping. Many positions I see offered are non-surgical as also not to start a turf war with ortho.

honestly I have not seen any non practicing MDs, but I have been in larger systems. They are all MBA types and any healthcare role was non clinical

 

[dtrack22]

The amount of revenue I bring in is criminal compared to my paycheck. And I get paid pretty well.

Yeah, podiatry is no different than any surgical sub specialty in terms of profitability for the MSG/Hospital. We don’t generate the same revenue as ortho, but it’s close and we don’t get paid as much per wRVU. So we can be just as valuable.

honestly I have not seen any non practicing MDs, but I have been in larger systems. They are all MBA types and any healthcare role was non clinical

Same. Every CEO I’ve met or worked for/with is a MBA/MHA type who has worked up through hospital admin without a medical degree or really any medical training.

 

[Feli]

...Same. Every CEO I’ve met or worked for/with is a MBA/MHA type who has worked up through hospital admin without a medical degree or really any medical training.

Yeah, it is very rare to see MD/DO as CEO anymore.

Most CEOs are HR or business/marketing trained.... MBA, MHA, etc. Some are nurses, PT, etc with a tiny bit of medical training and a few years in practice or even just "community leader" types before they simply kept going to biz school afterwards and used their social skill and good looks and connections to climb the ladder. Many of them are more akin to industry reps than any kind of actual clinicians or decision maker: helpful and bubbly but won't usually accomplish much besides maybe helping to recruit you or directing you to someone who can help.
At 95% of hospitals, the CMO is the highest ranked MDs, and they will then have some VP and CEO types over them... and HR heads are basically as or more powerful than CMO these days also. You would usually be better off talking to HR recruiter or the CMO about DPM jobs than any CEO... unless it is maybe a very small hospital or med center where people tend to wear multiple hats. At a lot of places, even the CEO is basically just the mouthpiece and human shield for the always unseen hospital board who effectively puppet$$$ the CEO and, by structure, all of the board of directors and other admins to create policy without being accountable for it. That is the life. 👻

At any rate, the days of doctors being gods and running/owning the place and dictating the hospital policies are definitely long gone. That has been changing since before any of us were in grad school. Doctors are generally good workers but too busy working or infighting ego stuff with other docs to see the big picture. If any docs are good enough at business/marketing to be CEO (some certainly are), they will usually just make more running or partnering in PP and have less headaches and less oversight or politics that way (those shiny salesman docs usually aren't too popular with nerd docs who do a lot of work at the hospital anyways). There may be rare exceptions out there.

...MSG (with or without a DPM presently) and pod groups would usually be much better sources of work options, esp part time work that you could start in a timely manner.

 

[Creflo]

There is definitely fudging going on if someone is doing a majority of people in a nursing home, but there are a lot more people who meet guidelines than you might think. Just look at what it takes to hit the Q9 modifier in your MACs routine foot care LCD. A handful of subjective things that most old people would complain about, and then a handful of clinical exam findings that most people who are in skilled nursing facilities have. Skilled nursing facilities are not retirement communities or even assisted living facilities. These people are usually pretty sick and unhealthy. Combine that with a modifier that isn’t really that hard to hit, and you got a lot of patients who qualify without anyone lying.

All that being said, I guarantee you there are individual podiatrists and big companies who purposefully/knowingly commit fraud on a regular basis. I just think it’s much more likely to happen in an assisted living facility or memory care center (which you get sent to if you work for one of the big contractors like Healthdrive), than it is at an actual SNF.

I still do a lot of mobile work, but no longer am "the podiatrist" for any assisted living facilities. It was a pain to collect proof of diabetes or other qualifying systemic condition and turn away or charge the ones that didn't qualify. To do it by Medicare guidelines, all those residents lined up to see you would actually have to have thick, painful nails or have a qualifying systemic condition with class findings. When an ALF offers for me to be their guy, I pass on it for this reason. You can't ethically bill medicare for all those residents' toenail care.