Mohs Compensation Negotiation

[Slack3r]

Hoping to start looking for positions this winter. When evaluating employee contracts for Mohs, what’s the typical structure for compensation? %collections? Are the percentages similar to what’s offered for gen derm (ie 40-50%)? If you’re doing mixed general and Mohs/surgical, is the compensation structured similarly for both vs. cosmetics which is typically treated separately? Fixed sum per case (maybe in academics/VA?) wRVUs? Any things to look out for (good or bad) during the job search? I presume Mohs is more of a “sellers market” compared to gen derm due to the glut of qualified candidates.

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[asmallchild]

Hoping to start looking for positions this winter. When evaluating employee contracts for Mohs, what’s the typical structure for compensation? %collections? Are the percentages similar to what’s offered for gen derm (ie 40-50%)? If you’re doing mixed general and Mohs/surgical, is the compensation structured similarly for both vs. cosmetics which is typically treated separately? Fixed sum per case (maybe in academics/VA?) wRVUs? Any things to look out for (good or bad) during the job search? I presume Mohs is more of a “sellers market” compared to gen derm due to the glut of qualified candidates.

Probably depends on the practice setup. For most employed private practice positions, I've found it to be a base+bonus eventually transitioning into %collections. Most groups I interviewed with did not make the distinction between gen derm and Mohs and offered the same % for both. Cosmetics is typically treated separately as you mentioned.

I think the job hunt advice is similar for gen derm. I've found one of the most helpful questions is "Has anyone left your practice in the last 1-2 years and would you mind if I reached out to him/her?" The tone of their answer is sometimes more telling than the contact info you may or may not receive. My other surgically-specific pet peeve is the overbearing Mohs surgeon who is hiring someone new for the first time. I have found that some of them just can't help but interfere. They want to hire someone new but they want the new person to work exactly like them, even sometimes insisting on giving a double glance at trickier slides / repair. I think it depends on how much hand-holding you want but this was an instant turn-off for me. In those situations, I've also heard horror stories of insufficient rooms/equipment/staffing when the surgeons are working in such close proximity. An ideal situation (for me) would be the volume getting so large for the first Mohs surgeon that they're bringing on someone new at a different location.

It's been awhile since I've been on the job hunt but I didn't find the market to be significantly tighter than gen derm (although most of the cities I interviewed in were not big coastal cities). If your goal is 100% Mohs and no general derm at all from the start, that may limit your options geographically.