| | Hours/Duties/Call/Vacation
One common bone of connection for many new physicians is hours. Often new physicians enter a group with an expectation that they will work a certain number of hours, only to find that the requirement or common practice in the group is longer hours than they expected. The same holds true for call. Sometimes, it isn't as good as new physicians were led to believe. The contract should stipulate the number of hours you will be required to work each week, including the maximum number of hours that can be required, and when you will be expected to arrive and leave. It should also stipulate what the call arrangement will be. Some contracts are ambiguous, indicating that call will be arranged on an "appropriate" or "fair" basis. It is preferable that call be shared on an equal basis within the group.
Duties is an area that can be hard to quantify, because it is hard to know in advance how
many patients a new physician will see or how many procedures he or she will perform. However, the contract should specify in general what the physician is there to do - what services or procedures, what administrative duties, etc.
Number of weeks of vacation also should be specified in the contract. Often, this is a negotiating point, and for those specialties in the greatest demand, such as radiologists, vacation times are going up. While 4 or 5 weeks was common in radiology four or five years ago, 10 to 12 weeks is common now. For other specialties such as cardiology and orthopedic surgery, 4 to 6 weeks is common, while in primary care 3 to 4 weeks is standard. However, vacation can fluctuate based on the number of physicians in the practice, culture of the practice and related factors.
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