Kaiser I'm talking to okayed outside work as an expert witness.
The clinic has 60-minute intakes 30-minute follow ups. Sounds like at least 1 new patient per day maybe 2, scheduled for 11-13 total per day 8-5pm, though there is a requirement to work a certain amount after 5pm to be available for people who work during the day, so you have a late start day once or twice a week.
One aspect that's kind of annoying, is patients message you directly. Some messages are handled by a clinic nurse, but many get forwarded on to you. I was told you have wide latitude in how you handle it. If for example a patient is having a problem with a new medication, you can handle it through messaging, like lowering the med dose, or stopping it, starting something else instead etc....Or you could tell them you need to get them into the clinic for follow-up before making changes. Not that you will always have space available to get them in.
My most recent outpatient job all messages went to RN who would handle probably half the questions, other half RN would talk to me and 99% of the time I could tell them what to do and it was handled without me having to directly contact the patient. Sounds like with Kaiser that 50% the doctor handles directly.
Kaiser also does not have flexibility to work 4 x 10-hour days. Most of the employed clinic jobs local to me have shifted to allowing this, basically working 8 hours straight through 8-4 or 8-5 with lunch, and 2 hours of documentation time at end of day, with the goal being to have no documentation to do so you can just leave at 5. Then you get Friday off.
Kaiser does pay slightly better than other employed outpatient jobs and has better benefits. And with sign on bonus requiring 3 years or so, I think for many people you can get into the system and build up a practice over 1-2 years, 3rd year gets busier, and you can decide if the Kaiser system works for you. If so great. If not, you can bail after the time requirement for sign on bonus passes.
One unclear thing is new patients never seem to stop. Even if you've been there 10 years you get new patients every day/week and it doesn't really make sense how that works, like you must be pretty proactive in sending back to PCP because there's no way natural attrition is high enough on its own to avoid having follow ups scheduled 4 months out.
