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[LADoc00]

Talked to a pathologist last night looking for a candidate. The place is in a very desirable California location. They were a small group that provided services for a county hospital. The problem was they were independant contractors...now being an independant contractor isnt always bad BUT this group was such that they provided NO benefits. No health, dental, vision. No 401K. And they are forced to work with worst patient demographic there is (as most public type hospitals, but in California most of the patient base is non-English speaking).

Be very very wary of groups that provide services to a County/Governmental agency. Be especially wary of groups that provide these services as "contractors". SERIOUS RED FLAG.

That is code word for: you will be our beeeoootch and we wont give you any benefits. Any group that gets suckered into such a situation and doesnt have other contracts they are running is asking to get used.

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[1Path]

That is code word for: you will be our beeeoootch and we wont give you any benefits. Any group that gets suckered into such a situation and doesnt have other contracts they are running is asking to get used.

I'm going to speak as a person who has worked for almost 20 years.........

In general, being a private contractor is not a good move from the benefits point of view. However, for women who need flexible hours/schedules this type of set up can be perfect. Not only that, most of these positions make up for what they don't offer in benefits in salary (or you should definitely negotiate a higher salary if you're in this situation). I've seen compensation be as high as 200% of what a "salaried" employee would receive depending on experience.

And just to expound on groups that provide services to Gov't agencies, the biggest issue I've seen is that the Gov't can be VERY slow in paying the group, and the group can if doesn't have its fiscal house in order, they'll pass this delay onto YOU. Despite this obvious downside, I've seen private contractors in almost every industry from computer science to medicine eventually become business owners.

One more comment, I've also seen pathologists in academia do this type of thing "on the side" where benefits would be a moot point.