What is contract negotiation and why care? ⠀⠀
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When I was at the AAO – our Academy ophthalmology conference this last weekend, Dr. Lisa Nijm did an amazing presentation on contract negotiation! ⠀⠀

This is a topic I hope to learn more about in the future – but it had such great points I wanted to bring them up in this post. ⠀⠀
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1. Know the basics of a salary structure – I think this a great subject for a future post. Essentially, there is a base salary with a bonus that is often based on 25-35% on collections that is 2-3x over base salary. So, then your actual salary is your base pay with the bonus (which is based on collections). ⠀⠀
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2. Knowing what you want – an important point was knowing what you find “non negotiable”. Things to think about were benefits (insurance, retirement contributions), sick leave, vacation days, mal practice / does it include tail covereage, start date, partnership potential, and professional expenses. ⠀⠀
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3. Knowing what the average salary in the area is – looking at salary.com or maybe reaching out to fellow people who left and/or are in the area to see if what you are being paid is reasonable. ⠀⠀
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4. Knowing how to look over the financials of the company and if your compensation makes sense (I was surprised by this – but I guess this is a thing!) ⠀⠀
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5. Having a contract lawyer in your specialty look over your contract. The lawyer who was speaking says his resident/fellow rate was around $300-500 an hour based on time spent reviewing the contract. ⠀⠀
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These were just some of the high yield points! Brings a lot more ideas for future posts because I realized I wasn’t familiar with most of the concepts discussed. One of my attendings mentioned how its important to know these things so when you first start out you don’t get fleeced. ⠀⠀
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I still have a year and half to go at least! So will try to shed more light on these things as the time comes.
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Is this a topic you thought much on? If you’ve already done this, where did you go to learn more about contract negotiation for physicians? #residency#contractnegotiation#livelikearesident#newhire#moretolearn#dontgetfleeced

https://theophthalmologist.com/business-profession/the-negotiation-game