Job Benefits

[green mantis]

I have a question for those of you that just finished residency / fellowship & started your 1st "real" job. I know that salaries are variable depending on which part of the country you're in, but what about benefits?

What did your group offer you in terms of vacation time, malpractice insurance, health / dental / vision coverage, book money, association / licensing fees, etc? Were you able to negotiate any of these, or did you just take what they offered?

Thanks for whatever info you can provide!


----- Antony

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[yaah]

At my group everything is the same for everyone in the group, so there wasn't any reason for negotiation. We had the opportunity to negotiate things like actual first year salary and moving expenses but that was about it.

 

[lipomas]

If you are on a salary, you could presumably negotiate your benefits like CME funds, things like that. Health insurance less likely to be negotiated because you are probably going to be part of a large pool. I don't know of too many places where vacation time is that variable from person to person. Where I work everybody gets the same number of vacation days (partners and new associates). I negotiated an interest-free advance on my salary - group was also willing to pay moving expenses but I declined.

The thing is, if you are in a partnership group every dollar that is spent comes out of your salary anyway. So there really isn't anything set aside for CME and all that. If you don't spend it, you get it back. Now, if you're a new associate you probably aren't on the same incentive payment plan, and the group may or may not have your CME expenses as part of your package (that is, paid for by others or paid for out of your salary). My CME comes out of my total salary, but then again I negotiated my total salary, so it depends on how you look at it. My salary then rises every year until partnership (3 years), unless of course I read this forum too much, in which case it will be rising each year until I am fired one week before making partner.