I’ve made my New Year’s Resolutions, and so far (8 or so hours into the New Year), I’m doing pretty well. One of my resolutions is to be more proactive about business matters in my own law practice. That means for me, making more specific “to do” lists, prioritizing the items on the list, and actually getting things done–especially items that I may have been putting off for a while. And since I work with doctors in my practice, I got to thinking about what my physician clients and prospective physician clients could do to move the ball forward this year in their business dealings. After all, as professionals (lawyers and doctors and all other professionals), we can work to improve the quality of the services we provide (and we should, of course). But, we are all business people, too, and we must put the same or similar effort into being better at the administrative or business side of what we do. So, listen up, you doctors who have been in practice for a while. If you’re looking to enter into a new contract this year with a large medical group practice, a hospital, or a small medical practice with 1 or 2 other physicians, you should resolve to be more proactive and prudent about that contract you’re about to sign. After all, you may have learned the hard way on a previous contract that those hard to understand provisions are important. Big provisions in employment contracts to pay special attention to are the ones dealing with your ability to “compete” by practicing medicine in the geographic area after you leave your job. And that on-call provision that you didn’t think was going to be a problem, but it turned out to be a problem–resolve not to make that same mistake again. And you new physicians who are just on the cusp on getting your first job. Listen to me: don’t just sign something without making sure you understand what you’re getting into. Here’s a link to an article and a video from Medscape.com about the importance of physicians’ having their employment contracts reviewed by an attorney before just signing on the dotted line. As this article points out, even if you’re joining a hospital or a large group practice and your ability to negotiate changes in the contract are somewhat limited, you should still get the contract reviewed before you sign. So, Happy New Year to all my physician friends and clients! Here’s to making 2018 the best year ever in your practice, not just on the medical, clinical side of the ledger, but also on the business/administrative side of things.
