New job contract, Tail coverage, other compensation

[heyjack70]

While looking for jobs post-training, have you found that most employed positions offer an occurrence based policy, or if they have claims made, do they pay for your tail? Is it common for an employer to pay for board exam fees, relocation, and offer an annual CME stipend/reimbursement?

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[whopper]

From personal experience

Employers will almost always give you free time off for a CME-about a week but you have to be doing stuff for the CME. You don't do CMEs? You don't get the time off. From most places I've seen, most will not pay for it.

If they do agree to pay for it and it's a state job, and you go to a nice place (e.g. Hawaii or a cruise), don't be surprised to be on the front page of the local paper being called the new gold-digger of the community. I've seen several colleagues have this happen to them. In Cincinnati, a local pathologist with the coroner's office went on a CME, and the local paper tried to make it as if the state was paying for this doctor to have a free vacation, showing the nice highly rated resort hotel the doctor stayed at.

Insurance? Several places will pay for your insurance. Despite this, careful. I've seen several cases where the employer claimed they will pay but when the person got sued, the employer used every dirty trick in the book to not pay for it. A good friend of mine was a victim of this. He was sued, and when it went to court he had to pay for his own lawyer at a cost of several thousands of dollars when the employer was supposed to pay for it.

Where I'm at now, I know from several colleagues they will very defensively guard their doctors. A friend of mine with the department was sued and the legal fees were $300K and the department paid for all of it without burdening my friend at all.

The general recommendation I've heard from many is even if your insurance is covered by them, get your own anyways as backup.

Board exam fees? No. I've seen no one ever pay for these.

Relocation? 50-50. Some yes some no.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

From personal experience...

Board exam fees? No. I've seen no one ever pay for these.

Relocation? 50-50. Some yes some no.

I'll just state for the record that my employer pays Board exam fees, licensing, DEA, relocation, and a decent annual CME allowance.

 

[michaelrack]

Assuming you are a W2 employee, there is a slight tax advantage for the employer picking up these expenses (vs. paying you a higher salary and having you cover these expenses such as licensing out of your pocket and deducting them on your own income taxes). For peace of mind, it may be worth it for you to just ask for a higher salary instead of these benefits and keep control. Having the employer pay for your malpractice is often a standard part of employment- look over the arrangement/malpractice policy very closely in this situation.

 

[whopper]

I'll just state for the record that my employer pays Board exam fees, licensing, DEA, relocation, and a decent annual CME allowance.

Awesome.

I didn't clarify this. Every employer I've seen will "pay" for CME as if it's vacation time. That is, you still earn money while your'e at it, but they don't reimburse for the travel, the CME itself, or the food and lodging. Well they kind of are considering you're getting paid by the hour while you're there but I think you get my drift.

But I have seen some places pay for everything....EVERYTHING and you still get paid as if you're on vacation but this is the exception, but then again, the guys I know that had this, well they also ended up on the front page of the paper too either covering their faces, or unapologetically saying they deserved it while the reporters made them look like gold diggers.

I'm not kidding on this. A few colleagues, as I mentioned above, had this happen to them. Their boss, the head doctor, argued publicly that the doctor deserved to have his CME-cruise paid for as it was stipulated in the benefits that the state was supposed to have a paid for CME activities. That head doctor later died while on the job. I never heard the specific reason why but I really think it had to do with the stress related with the local papers reaming him for making those arguments. Every time he opened his mouth up, the papers just made him look worse and worse. A few months later he was dead, while I heard through the grapevine that he was stressed as all heck getting publicly destroyed.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

Then I will clarify that in addition to my CME time being paid, I have an annual allowance for reimbursement of travel, food, lodging, and conference fees. I imagine that our Medical Services office would look askance at a request for a CME cruise (do they even still do those?), but I've never had a reasonable request turned down, even though most conferences are at quite desirable locations. We do have to file a form that states how many Category 1 credits we expect to earn, etc. I think it would all pass muster by the journalistic muck-rakers--especially now that we've thrown the Drug Reps out...

 

[whopper]

You could pull a Phil Robertson, and take an interview and then say something creepy.

Who knows? It could morph you into a OldPsychDoc reality show on A&E.

 

[Shikima]

I'll just state for the record that my employer pays Board exam fees, licensing, DEA, relocation, and a decent annual CME allowance.

Can I come work for you?

 

[vistaril]

Can I come work for you?

seems like most of the non-academic 'corporate hospital'(like HCA) has matching 401k up to a certain point, med/dental, malpractice, licensing, disability, relocation, and sign on(or some student loan repayment). Not sure about board stuff, but thats a one time expense. Those benefits are pretty much the standard in any employed salaried position, academic or not.

 

[Shikima]

It's not as generous as you think. I've gotten pretty bad offers where they offered "benefits" on a W-2 and I would pay 50% of my own overhead. Another offer was as a "contractor" but pay 20% of my OH and attend meetings where hospital admin discuss how MH services is persistently in the red.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

You could pull a Phil Robertson, and take an interview and then say something creepy.

Who knows? It could morph you into a OldPsychDoc reality show on A&E.

I think an SDN show, co-starring our regulars and distinguished alumni, would be a hoot--and probably also set psychiatry's reputation back to pre-Freudian stages.

 

[vistaril]

It's not as generous as you think. I've gotten pretty bad offers where they offered "benefits" on a W-2 and I would pay 50% of my own overhead. Another offer was as a "contractor" but pay 20% of my OH and attend meetings where hospital admin discuss how MH services is persistently in the red.

oh yeah I'm not disagreeing with the nation that there is a race to the bottom in mh. And I'm not saying that going to work for places like HCA is awesome, but at least there are decent benefits.

Last week had a conversation with someone whose dad is a neonatologist and makes over a million per year. Don't know him, but he doesn't seem to be doing anything out of the ordinary that any other person wouldn't(like seeing a billion patients or having special contracts). If you want to make real $, this isn't the way to do it.

 

[whopper]

Found one of the articles I mentioned above...

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/...rs-deny-coroner-s-Alaskan-cruise-trip-request

 

[Shikima]

I think an SDN show, co-starring our regulars and distinguished alumni, would be a hoot--and probably also set psychiatry's reputation back to pre-Freudian stages.

I think we're already there.... particularly with the Vets.