Physician contract lawyer, Michael Johnson, comes on the podcast to talk about protecting your freedom and your value, and getting it in writing. First, you must get clear on what you want. You may think it’s a big paycheck, but your desires often evolve, and you do yourself a service to make room for future changes of heart. Then, make sure you understand your employer's motivations. What do they want from you? Approach the negotiation with a mindset that you are actually hiring them. You’re the highly skilled and knowledgeable asset, and you get to decide how much you want to pay a potential employer to take care of the back-end business stuff.

Some take aways:

- There are 3 main components of physician contracts: work obligations, compensation, and exit strategy

- Employers may have the power to unilaterally change your work obligation clauses; look for this in your contract

- 40% of physicians change jobs in the first 5 years, so know the legal and financial penalties of exit (how much will it cost me if I change my mind?)

- Get clear on what's most important to you: control and autonomy, scholarship, or compensation?

- There are 3 established insurance-based practice models: true classic academic, perpetual employment, and business owner/private practice

- Direct care/concierge is the one practice model that gives you 100% control, freedom, and autonomy, but it comes with potentially more risk and less upfront compensation

- You are a small business, and your potential employer is an entity to which you outsource the business end of medicine--billing, collections, equipment, staffing, marketing, etc.

- Employers can still subtly or not-so-subtly discriminate against women and BIPOC physicians even if they have standardized the compensation plan

-Don’t let financial needs blind you, and always prepare to pivot

- Everything is negotiable, even if they say it’s “non-negotiable”

Follow Michael on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/physiciancontracts

Get his course here: https://physiciancontracts.com/

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