Post Author: Dennis Hursh, Esq
Dennis Hursh is a veteran attorney with over 40 years of experience in health law. He is founder, Physician Agreements Health Law, which offers a fixed fee review of physician employment agreements to protect physicians in one of the biggest transactions of their careers. He can also be reached on Facebook and LinkedIn.
Dennis is a frequent lecturer on physician contracts to residency and fellowship programs and has spoken at events sponsored by numerous health systems and physician organizations, including the American Osteopathic Association, the White Coat Investor, the American College of Rheumatology, the Pennsylvania Medical Society, the Pennsylvania Society of Cardiology, and the American Podiatry Association.
Dennis has authored several published articles on physician contractual matters on forums such as KevinMD and Medscape. He is also the author of The Final Hurdle – A Physicians’ Guide to Negotiating a Fair Employment Agreement which is considered the go-to resource on physician contract negotiation.
Dennis Hursh is a veteran attorney with over 40 years of experience in health law. He is founder, Physician Agreements Health Law, which offers a fixed fee review of physician employment agreements to protect physicians in one of the biggest transactions of their careers. He can also be reached on Facebook and LinkedIn.
Dennis is a frequent lecturer on physician contracts to residency and fellowship programs and has spoken at events sponsored by numerous health systems and physician organizations, including the American Osteopathic Association, the White Coat Investor, the American College of Rheumatology, the Pennsylvania Medical Society, the Pennsylvania Society of Cardiology, and the American Podiatry Association.
Dennis has authored several published articles on physician contractual matters on forums such as KevinMD and Medscape. He is also the author of The Final Hurdle - A Physicians’ Guide to Negotiating a Fair Employment Agreement which is considered the go-to resource on physician contract negotiation.
Are hospitals crazy?
I suspect many physicians would answer “yes” to that question without much contemplation. I have always assumed that, although hospitals are profit-driven and therefore likely to have very different priorities than physicians who care about patients, the institutions can be relied upon to have some semblance of reasonableness.
Lately, however, I have been forced to reconsider my position. For decades, I have represented physicians in their various interactions with …
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When you have been reviewing physician employment agreements for nearly four decades, you tend to get a little jaded about the possibility of ever seeing reasonable compensation for physicians. Although I am continually preaching to the choir about the need for reasonable physician compensation, I rarely see something that gives me encouragement that physicians may someday be paid appropriately for everything they do.
However, recently I have reviewed several agreements titled …
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As somebody who has reviewed physician employment agreements for 40 years or so, I have to admit I am more than a little jaundiced when it comes to the subject of hospital executive compensation. I’m not altogether convinced that one health system CEO really “earned” the $35.5 million he was reported to have been paid in 2021. I’m sure the pandemic was hard on him. Seeing all those physicians exposing …
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For over 40 years, I have been harping on the fact that physicians rarely understand their true value when they are looking for a new position. I always advise physicians that they get 0 percent of what they don’t ask for.
In my practice, I review physician agreements and provide a letter on my law firm stationery requesting changes. I frequently need to convince physicians that they should send my letter …
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I have been representing physicians for over 40 years, and the vast majority of the people I work with are genuinely nice. Overworked, stressed, sometimes distracted – yes, but most physicians entered the profession because they were sincerely concerned about people and wanted to help. Medicine can be a truly thankless job, and the vast majority of physicians don’t pursue it solely for the money.
Unfortunately, this characterization of physicians is …
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Locum tenens agreements can be useful to physicians in many circumstances. In addition to serving as a way to supplement your income during vacations, physicians often enter locum tenens agreements between jobs, to provide income while waiting for interviews or for credentialing to be completed at a new position.
In many ways, reviewing a locum tenens agreement is similar to reviewing a physician employment agreement, but there are unique aspects to …
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Many physicians ask if there is any reason why they can’t just give two weeks’ notice (or so) and leave a bad situation, even though their employment agreement requires significantly longer notice for without cause termination of the physician employment contract. The question is usually phrased as, “What can they do to me?”
Often, there is no penalty provided in the agreement for leaving early. Accordingly, the physician sometimes believes …
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At least one commentator has opined that “physicians aren’t burned out. They’re abused.” That is an extremely accurate diagnosis. No matter how many mandatory meditation sessions physicians are required to attend during their lunch hours, they remain overworked, overstressed, and unhappy with their careers.
Although there is no easy fix, there are issues that can be addressed in the physician employment agreement that can ameliorate the horrible working conditions foisted …
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A letter of intent (sometimes called a “term sheet”) can be useful for physicians and those who recruit them. The purpose of letters of intent in physician contracts is simply to ensure that both parties are “on the same page” as far as the major terms of the agreement they hope to enter. For example, if you expect to be paid $300,000 a year, but the employer is expecting …
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It will come as no surprise to anyone reading my articles that hospitals can be extremely condescending to physicians. As a physician’s lawyer who spends his days reviewing and negotiating physician employment agreements, I am also frequently “treated” to this phenomenon.
My firm has coined the phrase “hospitalsplaining” to describe how hospitals routinely talk down to physicians and their lawyers. A recent example illustrates the problem nicely.
We were reviewing a …
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Physicians receiving a new employment contract need to be aware of issues that can arise related to their compensation and benefits. These are some of the things that should be carefully reviewed before signing the agreement.
Compensation
The agreement should clearly provide what productivity is expected. You can frequently gauge expected productivity by the salary level. If one employer is paying significantly more than another, it is a safe bet that the …
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If you are considering accepting an academic appointment, you need to be cognizant of the special issues involved in contracts in academia. You must know these things before signing an academic physician employment agreement.
An academic physician employment agreement is usually light on provisions.
Unlike most hospital physician employment agreements, an academic physician employment agreement tends to be very sparse on contractual provisions. Typically an academic physician employment agreement will just be …
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As a physicians’ attorney who focuses his practice on physician contract review, I have seen some truly horrendous results after physicians have signed agreements they did not understand. Here are just a few of the “war stories” I have experienced.
24/7 call “for a few years”
One physician employment agreement I reviewed had several points that I felt should be clarified. The employer’s attorney accommodated most of my requests for clarification in …
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As a physician’s attorney focusing on physician contract review, I spend all of my professional life reviewing and negotiating physician employment agreements. In my experience, women physicians have several issues that need special attention when negotiating their physician employment agreements.
Any physician needs to be familiar with appropriate compensation through benchmarking data such as that published by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA). However, while this may be one of several …
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Military physicians leaving the military have several issues that should be carefully evaluated before executing a contract with a civilian employer.
First of all, the income is definitely going to be higher than the military physician salary. Much like a physician coming out of training, military physicians should ask whether the salary is fair, not if they will be making more than they currently earn. Medical Group Management Association (“MGMA”) benchmarks …
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The Great Resignation is producing tremendous challenges for physicians. In particular, many “senior” physicians (some as young as 50 years old) are simply throwing in the towel and resigning rather than continue with the brutal schedules imposed by many employers. As physicians leave, it is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit new talent, so in many cases the remaining physicians are forced to take up the “slack.” That “slack,” of course, …
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As an attorney who negotiates physician employment agreements with hospitals on a daily basis, I have developed a healthy skepticism about mindset of hospital executives. It is painfully obvious that most executives in our hospital systems have a business school mindset, that views physicians as necessary (albeit expendable) cogs in the magnificent machine that is the hospital.
Executives can hardly be blamed for this attitude. Physicians will always …
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