Physician Contracts: Negotiating your first contract – part I

As residents, we enjoy a rather sheltered life. We work hard, read digest and debate cutting edge medical research and studies, and try to do a darn good job taking care of patients. The one thing we don’t do? Learn the business of medicine. While some residents will go on to continue in academia, the majority will emerge to engage in one or the other form of private practice. All these endeavors involve a crucial legal document – the contract, made between the employer and the prospective employee i.e. You! The employer can be a hospital, a private group or even a solo practitioner trying to hire a partner. In this post, we share our thoughts about negotiating your first physician contract.

While this post will ramble on, perhaps in multiple parts, there are two extremely important observations that need to be put out right now to emphasize their importance: (more…)

When to start looking for J1 waiver job

Anyone on a J1 visa has this simple question…when should I start looking for a J1 waiver job?

In general, the search for J1 waiver follows the timeframe similar to fellowship search. If you are in a 3-year residency (or fellowship) program, you should start looking as soon as you enter year 2. You should aim to line up interviews by the middle of year 2 which would translate to October-February period of year 2. Try to seal the deal (i.e.) sign the contract by June at the latest – i.e. end of year 2.

The whole point of this exercise is to have your J1 waiver application packet ready to be filed by August. In case you missed it, the packet needs to be ready to be filed by August.

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How to find J1 waiver jobs

How to find a J1 waiver job!!! This can be a lengthy topic to deal with, so we’ll break it up into short manageable segments. This following post is the first such post. The plan is to summarize everything in the final post sometime in the future. But we’re quite well known to not always stick to the plan! Onward, however…

Finding a J1 waiver job can be a long drawn out affair. On the other hand, it can be a very quick experience. It all depends on what your requirements from the waiver job are. It also depends on luck, of course.

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Heart sounds for USMLE

Computer based USMLE has had multimedia features for some time now. These features include heart sounds. If you look beyond the stress of the exam itself, these multimedia features are quite cool actually! Only tough part is, preparing for these multimedia tests. For example, getting used to listening to and deciphering heart sounds on a computer as opposed to a stethoscope can be a bit challenging in itself. We recently came across this fairly sophisticated “Virtual trainer” at the 3M website – makers of the famed Littman stethoscopes! Check it out.

littman.com

A page just for IMGs!!

After many an attempt, its here finally! A page that filters in and displays only the posts written for international medical graduates. No more dealing with those silly “musings of a medicinal mind” posts. See the brand-spankin-new ‘IMGs’ button in the navigation bar above? That button was created just for you, dear IMGs!

Modifying a WordPress “theme” to suit one’s particular needs can be rough and difficult at times. Making this single small change took a lot of time! But, finally, its here. Have fun!

A perspective

I often wonder about abstract things like “who am I?”, “what is my purpose on this planet? Am I just a manifestation of the innate desire of a biological species to propagate itself?”…just random thoughts like that!

And driven by these thoughts, I sometimes come across gems like this following video:
YouTube Preview Image
“The Known Universe”.
Video by American Museum of Natural History, hosted on youtube.com

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Categories: Musings
Tagged with: Musings
 

Visa for residency : J1

There’s J1 for residency and J1 for research. This post refers to the J1 visa as it applies to an international medical graduate (IMG) seeking a residency program. For residency J1, an IMG needs to meet certain criteria. Details can be found on the ECFMG site. But briefly, an IMG must have:

  • passed USMLE steps 1, 2CK and 2CS. (Step 3 is not required for J1 visa.)
  • ECFMG certificate.
  • a contract or letter of offer from the residency program.
  • and, “Statement of Need” from Ministry of Health or equivalent.

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The reason more doctors don’t discuss vaccines

“Why Don’t More Doctors Discuss Vaccines With Their Patients?” That is the question being asked on one of my favorite reads, the Wall Street Journal’s health blog. The author, Ms. Laura Landro, goes on to point out:

…high level of…failure by many physicians to discuss vaccines with their patients, let alone administer the ones recommended by the CDC…
For doctors, it often comes down to costs….

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Categories: Medical, Musings
Tagged with: Healthcare reformsInsuranceMedicalMusings
 

Mayo Clinic drops Medicaid patients

Mayo Clinic drops Medicaid patients

Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. A  medical institution much admired by medical professionals and touted as a model of high quality, high efficiency healthcare by no less than the President. Justifiably so, I suppose.

Recently however, Mayo decided to drop Medicaid patients from two nearby states – Nebraska and Montana, citing “low government reimbursement rates”. Government reimbursement rates are admittedly found to be low by many institutions and physician practices, not just Mayo. One wonders what happens to these patients and the hospitals that will be providing care to these patients now that Mayo is no longer available to them. Are they somehow going to be reimbursed at a higher rate than Mayo? Highly unlikely, one would think.

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Categories: Medical, Musings
Tagged with: Healthcare reformsInsuranceMedicaidMedical
 

Do we need healthcare reform?

The proposed healthcare reforms and the resultant debates are the rage nowadays. Proponents and opponents are getting in each others’ face in ways not perhaps imagined by the administration. The head butting is so intense at times that to a casual bystander, it might appear that people have forgotten why they were arguing in the first place. No one is ready to give an inch as they stand nose to nose, screaming and sending spittle flying, the viewers’ eyes riveted to their jugulars which appear dangerously close to burst point.

In this milieu, hospitals and doctors’ offices continue to go about their business as usual. As a matter of principle, we tend to keep our views to ourselves, as surely a majority of doctors do. Sometimes a patient would attempt to get us sucked into the current national argument but they don’t get very far, running into our carefully crafted stone wall of non-committal answers. But there are other times, when one encounters a situation that tends to precipitate musings. I found myself in such a situation on a busy office day recently. A situation which can be frustrating and is probably played out almost every day in physicians’ office all over the country.

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Categories: Medical, Musings
Tagged with: Healthcare reformsInsuranceMedicaidMedicalMedicareMusings