Job Offer Thoughts

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Techmed07

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Three year contract:
Adult/ Child Psychiatry
320 salary
20k sign on bonus
10 k moving expenses
1500 CME per year?
Malpractice covered. But will require to purchase tail
DEA expenses covered
10 days of vacation a year
5 days of child care leave
2 weeks of sick leave


Thoughts? What else should I ask for? I got this offer letter about 2 weeks ago, and they are willing to work with me.
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If they’re not paying for tail, they’re not paying for malpractice.
 
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2 weeks of vacation?? That’s it??
 
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Members don't see this ad :)
There's like no specifics here. What kind of job is this? Outpatient? Inpatient? What are the patient care expectations? Number of patients per day? If it's outpatient, length of time for intakes and followups? Call coverage requirements? How are you getting paid, straight salary, RVU based, salary plus production over a certain RVU?

Agree that the two weeks of vacation is terrible. 4 weeks is very standard.
Who cares about DEA expenses, it's really not even worth mentioning and shouldn't factor into anything (comes out to like 300 bucks a year).
Agree malpractice cost could be significant if you end up purchasing tail coverage for years worth of full time patient care.
Is this a W2? 1099? Any benefits? 401k? If it's a 1099 position with no benefits, this starts looking a bit worse after health insurance, taxes, retirement, etc especially if you have a family.
 
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calvnandhobbs68 said:
There's like no specifics here. What kind of job is this? Outpatient? Inpatient? What are the patient care expectations? Number of patients per day? If it's outpatient, length of time for intakes and followups? Call coverage requirements? How are you getting paid, straight salary, RVU based, salary plus production over a certain RVU?

Agree that the two weeks of vacation is terrible. 4 weeks is very standard.
Who cares about DEA expenses, it's really not even worth mentioning and shouldn't factor into anything (comes out to like 300 bucks a year).
Agree malpractice cost could be significant if you end up purchasing tail coverage for years worth of full time patient care.
Is this a W2? 1099? Any benefits? 401k? If it's a 1099 position with no benefits, this starts looking a bit worse after health insurance, taxes, retirement, etc especially if you have a family.
Click to expand...
Outpatient
W2
Health insurance ( I asked more about this they say something about HSA)
401k after three months. Match
Straight Salary for the first two years
 
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Location means a lot when it comes to salary.
 
$1500 for CME is ridiculous low.
APA membership is like $500-800 per year.
ASAM membership is like $600
blah blah is like $700

Simply put you have membership in any medical societies, and since you are CAP you already have two boards right there. That practiclly eats up your CME. Then do they count the $175 per year fee for MOC as part of CME? there goes another $300+ of that CME money. You now have no money left for any conferences. A single conference will eat up $2000+

CME should be $4-5000 per year. And be liberal enough to by text books if you want.
 
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All these divisions of vacation vs sick day vs child care make me grumpy about employed jobs. That's horse scat. And 2 weeks is a joke. 6-7 weeks total time off is the norm regardless of their labels.

You should be able to take X amount of days off for whatever reason you want and no one should be in your business about it. Kid's puking their guts out, take it off. Your puking your guys out, take it off. Hunting season rolls around and got new .308 win bolt action Ruger you want to break in on some rutting Whitetails, take the week off. Just need a mental day to recoup, take the day off. This is how vacation days should be structured for all people, but for sure physicians.
 
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Thank you all! I will ask for more vacation days and regardless where I am I think I'll be ok with >300K. I don't mind the CME being low ( I rather that be in my salary so I can use it as I see fit).
 
I would insist on them paying for tail coverage esp if dealing with kids. Occurrence based malpractice is standard and I would accept nothing less
 
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Sushirolls said:
$1500 for CME is ridiculous low.
APA membership is like $500-800 per year.
ASAM membership is like $600
blah blah is like $700

Simply put you have membership in any medical societies, and since you are CAP you already have two boards right there. That practiclly eats up your CME. Then do they count the $175 per year fee for MOC as part of CME? there goes another $300+ of that CME money. You now have no money left for any conferences. A single conference will eat up $2000+

CME should be $4-5000 per year. And be liberal enough to by text books if you want.
Click to expand...

I'd ask about reimbursement for boards, societies, etc and how that is counted. In my old organization, they would pay for license, boards, and one society membership that was separate from CME funds. It was the same for physician spouse in the same org, though she has a higher amount of CME funds to use.
 
- 4 more weeks of vacation
- Reimbursement for boards, societies etc
- CME ( Approximately 4000 to 5000k)

What else?
 
Hard to tell if this is a good job offer (regardless of location) without knowing how many hours you're seeing patients each week and how long you have for follow-ups/news. Also as others have mentioned, location will definitely help you get a better sense of if this is a reasonable offer or not as others in a similar location can speak to if this is what they're seeing or not - if it's not comparable to other offers in the same region, something is usually off/there might be a catch.
 
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Techmed07 said:
- 4 more weeks of vacation
- Reimbursement for boards, societies etc
- CME ( Approximately 4000 to 5000k)

What else?
Click to expand...
You're missing the most important details which are what are you required to do per day. How long are intakes, how long are followups? What happens to salary after first 2 years? Call responsibilities? Who manages your patients when you are gone or after hours, are you cross-covering for others? What support staff are available. Non-compete clause? Penalities if leaving early? How long of non-fault notice do you need to give? There's so much missing from your post, I think it makes sense to pay someone to review the contract if you are really thinking about signing.
 
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Got a contract, get a lawyer.

forums.studentdoctor.net

Got a contract? Get a lawyer.

For the new grads, or the seasoned docs changing jobs, get a lawyer to review your contracts AND represent you. Most jobs are boiler plate templates, but even then I've combed over one such boiler plate and found few errors. In conjunction with a lawyer better language was drafted, additions...
forums.studentdoctor.net forums.studentdoctor.net
 
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Sushirolls said:
All these divisions of vacation vs sick day vs child care make me grumpy about employed jobs. That's horse scat. And 2 weeks is a joke. 6-7 weeks total time off is the norm regardless of their labels.

You should be able to take X amount of days off for whatever reason you want and no one should be in your business about it. Kid's puking their guts out, take it off. Your puking your guys out, take it off. Hunting season rolls around and got new .308 win bolt action Ruger you want to break in on some rutting Whitetails, take the week off. Just need a mental day to recoup, take the day off. This is how vacation days should be structured for all people, but for sure physicians.
Click to expand...

Agree that the offer on paid days off is bad, but semi-disagree that it should all be lumped together. Rescheduling patients when you call in sick the night before or day of can be a huge hassle for support staff. While I do agree that there should be a certain number of "sick days" (call in whenever), I understand the separation of vacation/CME days being scheduled 30-60 days in advance to manage scheduling more easily.

Techmed07 said:
- 4 more weeks of vacation
- Reimbursement for boards, societies etc
- CME ( Approximately 4000 to 5000k)

What else?
Click to expand...

Tail coverage.
 
I believe a lot of FQHCs and governmental agencies offer only 2 weeks of vacation at the onset.
 
Gavanshir said:
I believe a lot of FQHCs and governmental agencies offer only 2 weeks of vacation at the onset.
Click to expand...
Which is unreal as they tend to be the least desirable jobs in the first place. I clearly am missing how any doctor feels 2 weeks of vacation is sufficient for their own mental health.
 
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Merovinge said:
Which is unreal as they tend to be the least desirable jobs in the first place. I clearly am missing how any doctor feels 2 weeks of vacation is sufficient for their own mental health.
Click to expand...
They do tend to be easier jobs than other settings.
 
Not paying tail is very strange. 4-week vacation is standard.

Assuming location is suboptimal, 350k first-year total comp for *child* is ~meh, but it's fair if you are brand new are okay with doing this for a few years.

If you want to take the offer I would negotiate out those two. Everything else is peanuts and can be discussed/fussed with after you start the job.
 
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sluox said:
Not paying tail is very strange. 4-week vacation is standard.

Assuming location is suboptimal, 350k first-year total comp for *child* is ~meh, but it's fair if you are brand new are okay with doing this for a few years.

If you want to take the offer I would negotiate out those two. Everything else is peanuts and can be discussed/fussed with after you start the job.
Click to expand...

Where would you see more than 350k total comp for full-time outpatient work in child? That sounds pretty sweet but maybe I'm looking in the wrong places...
 
rjs2131 said:
Where would you see more than 350k total comp for full-time outpatient work in child? That sounds pretty sweet but maybe I'm looking in the wrong places...
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Child has a higher starting figure. This quoted job is likely FQHC at a bad location. PP start at 300 and go up from there on incentives. If you want a child 350k total comp I can refer you a few right now in a large metro: typically a facility W2 job looks something like this--a state/otherwise public outpatient facility in a not very good area, plus a little bit of inpatient/call coverage. A few straight outpatient. These are all recruiter calls. A couple are pure outpatient 1099 at around $200 an hour. Since I'm not child I trashed the mass mail.
 
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sluox said:
Child has a higher starting figure. This quoted job is likely FQHC at a bad location. PP start at 300 and go up from there on incentives. If you want a child 350k total comp I can refer you a few right now in a large metro: typically a facility W2 job looks something like this--a state/otherwise public outpatient facility in a not very good area, plus a little bit of inpatient/call coverage. A few straight outpatient. These are all recruiter calls. A couple are pure outpatient 1099 at around $200 an hour. Since I'm not child I trashed the mass mail.
Click to expand...
Sure but call coverage greatly changes this.

What I’ve seen is 250-270+ for sure pure outpatient but not routinely 300+ for pure outpatient. That’s pretty solid if you’re doing 30min followups/90 min or 2x 60 min intakes for child.

“Recruiter calls” without knowing the actually nitty gritty of the day to day of the jobs isn’t worth much for me. There’s a reason these recruiters are bombarding you with these “300+!!!” offers. I get the same emails/voicemails. Those jobs aren’t filling for a reason. Sometimes they want you to do 15 min followups/45 min intakes, sometimes they want you to do call coverage or other coverage, sometimes it’s in a super undesirable area, etc.
 
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thanks everybody this is a private practice in a metro area in the south. I think their clientele are in a higher socioeconomic status. I think the starting salary is dubious—but with the right brand I am guessing you can demand it. They were asking for 40-50 hours—-definitely not in a undesirable area.
 
Techmed07 said:
thanks everybody this is a private practice in a metro area in the south. I think their clientele are in a higher socioeconomic status. I think the starting salary is dubious—but with the right brand I am guessing you can demand it. They were asking for 40-50 hours—-definitely not in a undesirable area.
Click to expand...

There it is. I’ll bet they’re gonna be looking for more like 50 than 40 when you actually get in there. 9-10 hours of patient contact a day as an outpatient is a long day that most psychiatrists don’t want to work.

The starting salary isn’t dubious, it’s what I would expect for that amount of hours per week for a W2 position for pure outpatient. If it was 320 for 7 hours a day, I’d be wondering how they were going to cut your salary after the first year. In line with what I’ve seen outside of recruiter emails trying to fish for CVs.
 
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Oh I see. So most psychiatrists don’t work 40 hours a week? What’s a more reasonable work week.
 
Some job postings consider 35 or 36 clinical hours to be full time, with the rest as admin. The range is 32-36 hours clinical. But if you see 40 hours pure clinical patient contact, that is a red flag.
 
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