Episode 5: Permanent Physician Jobs (Transcript)

SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Heroes of Healthcare Podcasts, Special Edition. I'm your host, Ted Wayne. Today, our guest is Roger Bonds. Roger has advised physicians on their careers for over two decades and has reviewed over 3,000 physician employment contracts and physician partnership agreements with private practice, hospitals, academia, medical, and pharmaceutical companies. These contracts have represented over 1,300 employers throughout the U.S. and abroad. He is president and CEO of PhysicianCareerAdvisor.com, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, where his primary work includes offering expert advice for physicians in private practice and academia, including job search and comparison, CV review, interview skills, non-compete agreements, compensation, and buy-in and buy-out options. Let's jump into our interview. Roger, tell us a bit about the process of seeking a permanent physician job.

SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about permanent placement. With locum tenens, essentially, that's a temp job. They're going to be there for days, for weeks, for months. You're not their employee, you're going to be an independent contractor. A lot of physicians want that because, as an independent contractor, they're going to be able to handle their own expenses, their own taxes, and so they're going to be able to make some more dollars. Also, locum tenens typically pay very, very well. When we think about permanent placement, that's when you're taking a typically full-time physician. It could be part-time, but it's an ongoing basis. You're going to now be the employee of that group practice, the employee of that managed care company, the employee of that particular hospital. When we have the permanent placement agencies, what are we looking for? Again, I'm wondering how large is that agency? Because they can help you so much more if they have a great deal of experience. It could be that they already have the jobs in place that are open, they're looking for someone, or it could be, they're going to take you under their wing and they'll find out what it is that you're looking for, maybe geographically, also the scope of practice, and they'll be able to go out and find that particular position because they're constantly canvassing the employers for you. Another point of dealing with the permanent placement agencies, we like them so well because you can quite often have the in-house recruiter at that agency who's going to help you on an ongoing basis. So they learn more about you and what you want, what you need, what you're looking for, what are your priorities, what are your sorts of questions that you might have. And so with that partnership, you can move forward in a much more definitive fashion.

SPEAKER_00: Thank you for these insights which are really valuable for our physician community. If you enjoyed this information, please look out for the other topics we'll be covering with Roger. If you want to learn more, visit PhysicianCareerAdvisor.com. Thanks for joining us on this special edition of the Heroes of HealthCare podcast. We'll see you soon.