A job interview goes both ways, and new grads forget that half of it.

Leanne is back, and this time we're talking about interviewing for actual PA jobs. Yes, show up early and dress like you mean it. But the part people skip is having real questions ready for the employer.

What does supervision look like day to day? How much time do you get per patient? Who do you call when you're stuck at 4:55 on a Friday? What does onboarding look like for a new grad? The answers tell you whether this is a place that will train you or throw you in.

The physician-PA relationship is the single biggest factor in whether you like your first job. Ask about it directly.

What we talk about:

• Questions you should be asking the employer
• What to expect in a PA job interview
• Sizing up the physician-PA relationship
• Understanding your role and scope before you accept
• Preparation basics that still matter
• Red flags to listen for in the answers

Resources:

Free resume download: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-resume-download

Mock interview: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/mock-interview

PA School Interview Guide: https://www.thepaplatform.com/physician-assistant-school-interview-guide

Pre-PA counseling: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/pre-pa-counseling

Mentioned in this episode:

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Welcome to episode 82.

We're following up last week's episode on Resumes with today talking with Leanne again about interviewing for PA jobs, what you should ask, what you should be on the lookout for, and how to make sure that it's going to be a good fit.

So we'll jump into it in just a minute.

Welcome to the Pre PA Club Podcast.

If you want to learn how to become a physician assistant, you're in the right place.

I'm your host, Savannah Perry.

Let's get to it.

Hey, everyone.

Welcome to the Pre PA Club Podcast.

I hope everyone has had a really, really great week, and I just want to take a second to say thank you for listening.

I really hope that if you are about to get a PA job, that this is going to be helpful to you or if in the future you're kind of looking to know what all is involved in a page job, that you'll really enjoy this episode.

And so we did bring Leanne back from Advanced Practice Provider Solutions to go through that with us.

And her last episode on Resumes was awesome, and this one is as well.

And then next week we've got contracts and negotiations, so we just did this whole little series for everyone.

I'm Savannah, by the way.

I am a derm PA and also the creator of the Pre PA Club podcast and.

And the PA platform.

Sorry if my voice sounds a little hoarse.

Getting over a little spring fever, I guess.

But before we jump into today's episode with Leanne, there's a couple things I wanted to let you know about.

First of all, if you enjoyed the Pre PA Club podcast, I have something really exciting.

I'm going to be at a conference, the Northeast Pre PA Conference.

It's the very first one.

It's on August 3rd this summer, and I'm going to be doing the keynote and also interview workshops, which interviews are my thing, and I'm really excited.

So there's gonna be a link in the description if you want to look at it and sign up.

And you can use the code PA Platform20 for 20% off of registration.

Now, another thing that I've recently learned about that you guys are gonna be hearing more about in an upcoming episode that I'm really excited about is something that I receive a lot of emails from students about, especially, especially you guys who are interested in preparing for PA school.

You know, I know that grades and coursework and all that is so important for PA school and that sometimes, maybe in undergrad or at the beginning of your undergrad career, you didn't know that's what you wanted to do.

So I really want to always be able to connect with you guys when I can and provide any resources I wanted to let you know about Keck Graduate Institute Summer Programs KGI offers courses for undergrads including biochemistry, anatomy, physiology and microbiology.

So the main things you need for PA school they also offer a program called Summer Explore Health Professions, which is a two week residential program that offers classroom and experiential learning.

You'll get clinical shadowing experience and visits to local programs in medicine with physician assistants and more.

So that's all really awesome and a great way to get a lot of experience all at once.

If you want to check that out and learn more and browse all of their summer programs, you can Visit KGI Edu PaPlatform.

Again, that's KGI Edu PaPlatform and I'll have a link in the description to that as well so that you can check it out if you're wanting to head out to California for the summer and get some experience.

If you're looking for more information about that, also feel free to reach out to me and I can connect you to anyone who will be able to get you more information and answer all of your questions.

All right, let's dive into today's episode and I hope you enjoy.

Oh reminder.

This is on YouTube as well, so if you go to YouTube.com thepaplatform if you'd rather watch it and go through the presentation with us, you are welcome to do that.

Also link in description A lot of links there.

So since we've kind of gone through resumes and cover letters and a little bit of the differences between CVs, what a resume is, the next step would be interviewing.

So assuming that you've now kind of got everything together, you're comfortable with what you have, then you're sending your resume out in PDF format to get an interview.

So Interviewing Tips if you've got an interview, I definitely recommend GPSing the address of your interview at least 24 hours before and ideally around the time that your interview is going to be.

Because you want to know what does the traffic patterns look like?

Is there construction going on?

Is there something that's going to make you late and to me 15 minutes early is being on time and you may even want to show up a little bit earlier than that just to like sit in your car, hype yourself up, think about things, chill, whatever it is, and just be there and feel comfortable that you know that you're going to be on time.

So just to prevent issues with technology, write the address down on a piece of paper, print out the directions, put it in your phone, save it, put it in a couple places so that if your phone battery dies or something happens, that you have that address in another place that you can get where you need to go without having any conflicts.

Write down a contact number just in case.

Get the office phone number, get somebody's contact number.

So if you have an emergency or something happens, you're running late, you have somebody you can reach out to.

Dress professionally.

I think that that's a pretty obvious thing, so I still mention it on there because people sometimes don't dress professionally.

I will say that, you know, if you are in between jobs, say you work in surgery and you are trying to get another job, but your time's limited and all you have is your lunch break.

Like, could you show up in your white coat and your scrubs and would that still be professional?

I think it's fine.

But if you're a new graduate and you are not a working professional, that's like squeezing an interview in between job time.

Then try to show up in professional interview dress, whether that's slacks, blazer, or just a nice top.

Look professional.

Bring extra copies of your CV or your resume.

So it's nice because you don't know how many people are going to be interviewing you.

You might be sitting down with the office manager, you could be sitting down with the doctor, you could be sitting down with other pas other people in the office.

Who knows?

For example, at Cleveland Clinic, I ended up interviewing with like 10 different people one time.

And so in those types of situations, you want to make sure that you have a stack of your resumes in case they haven't printed it out, they haven't looked at it, and so you can hand to them and it looks really nice.

Professional.

It's a good thing to have on hand just in case I say carry the AAPA salary report with you for support.

I will say that the AAPA salary report right now is not the most accurate because they're not breaking down salaries by metropolitan area.

And honestly, I don't think that we have enough people responding to the survey to get a real accurate look at what are the salaries really looking like.

But I can tell you that if a doctor is none the wiser and you just need six something, this can be okay.

So it's not a bad idea to have that.

So when you're fighting for a certain number or benefits that you have Something to reference of why you're doing what you're doing.

But like I said, I will say that the data could be better.

I think we're working on that.

The recent survey that just came out, I think did get a little bit more specific into the questions and dive more into metropolitan area and specifics to counties.

So I think we're getting closer to that point, but not yet come prepared with a list of questions for employers so that you don't forget to ask certain questions.

So although you may be sitting in an interview and then they're going to say, oh, do you have any questions for us?

And then you just kind of spewed out whatever, it's probably a better idea to think about those questions in advance so that you don't ever leave and say, gosh, I forgot to ask them this one question.

And I think being consistent among interviews, too, by asking all of your interviewers the same questions will help you make decisions as far as which job you should be choosing.

Bring a pen and paper so that you can take notes.

Put your cell phone on silent, leave it somewhere so that it's not a distraction.

So do you have any questions for us?

And I say you have tons of questions because this is your time to interview them.

It's not just their time to interview you.

So it's really important the questions that you're going to be asking because this is going to give you a good idea, especially as a new graduate of is this environment going to be something that's going to give you what you're looking for as far as training?

Or is the doctor just kind of expecting you to go?

Like a lot of people want that environment where they initially start off with hand holding and you're not going to know that, or if they're just expecting you to fly unless you're asking the right questions.

And you also don't know if you're the first PA or if they are seasoned in having PAs and how they're going to be treating you.

Are they familiar with working with advanced practice providers?

And they may not be.

And you could put yourself in a situation where you're being treated like a medical assistant or doing duties that a PA may not normally be doing because the doctor doesn't understand what you do.

So I put on here types of questions that you should definitely be asking.

And I did go through AAPA's recommendations for interviewing as well, and I made sure I included the questions that they recommend too.

So can I shadow you in the office for a day to See if the position is a mutual fit.

I totally understand coming out as a new graduate that this is probably the last thing on the planet that you want to be doing, because after you just went through all your clinical rotations and you're finally free, you're like, gosh, I don't want to go shadow these people for free.

I want to get paid.

But this is really going to give you a better picture of what the job environment is like and how you're going to be interacting with the doctor and how the doctor interacts with other people.

So this can be really important in helping you make a decision about which job you want to do.

And if you feel comfortable in that work environment, you want to know if you're going to be full time or part time.

And then if you work more, is there incentive or are you just salaried?

And if you work 40 hours, 80 hours, you're going to get paid the same no matter what.

I will say that there's a structure that's becoming really popular right now called RVUs that you're probably familiar with.

And so this is not something I think people should be afraid of.

I think it's really rewarding because it actually is paying us for the work that we're doing.

And so oftentimes people will have a base salary plus an RVU or a bonus structure, or they have to generate a certain number of RVUs to hit their salary and then everything over that they get a bonus of.

And that's much better than having a flat salary and being bound to that, because you do want to get paid for the work that you're doing.

And I think this is trending towards something that's giving us the opportunity to get paid more of our worth.

How soon are we looking for somebody to start?

So if the employer wants you to start in one month and you still have a temporary license, you don't even have your real license yet, and you don't have a DEA or some of the things that they may be requiring.

You may not be able to start when they need you to start.

So both of you need to be transparent about how soon do they want you to start and how soon can you start?

Do you have a wedding plan that maybe will prevent you from starting right away?

There's a lot of different situations that will hold you back.

So you really want to know this because this could make or break you getting this job.

Time and place.

How many offices do you have?

And this becomes really important when we're talking about non compete because if you are getting a contract and it says that you are going to be restricted from working in urgent care from a 15 mile radius from every single Urgent Care Express office that exists, that could be really bad.

Because if Urgent Care Express is a franchise and Urgent Care Express has 20 locations across the state and you're restricted from working in any urgent care within a 15 mile radius of those urgent cares, you're basically going to have to move out of the state almost in some of these situations.

And so you want to make sure that you know the number of locations that these people have and then make sure that when you look in your non compete, that ideally it only restricts you.

If you accept the non compete from the area of the location that you work at, you don't want it to restrict you from every single location that somebody has.

You want to know the hours of operations, the number of hours of your work week.

What does that look like?

If they can define it in a contract, this is really helpful, not just saying like, oh, the provider will be full time.

Well, what does full time mean?

Because I have friends that are full time that work 30 hours.

I have friends that are full time that work 80 hours.

So we really want to try to define this to have a better idea of what that looks like.

Call schedule.

A lot of times this is not in people's contracts and they don't ask it during the interview.

You want to know, are you on call?

Is this shared call?

How often are you on call?

Are they reimbursing you for your cell phone?

There's a lot of different questions we have about call.

So is this something that's included in your salary?

Is this something they're paying you extra for?

What does that look like?

Because call is very different in a lot of different environments.

So this really is something that varies.

Holiday schedule, weekend schedule.

Are you a Monday through Friday, no weekends.

Do you get national holidays off?

Do you not get holidays off?

If you work in a hospital environment, it's likely you get no holidays and you probably work weekends and some nights.

So every different workplace and environment is different as far as what days people are getting off and what type of schedule they're working.

And you want to know what that looks like for you.

Who's in charge of scheduling?

Is there an advanced practice provider who's been delegated the task of creating the schedules that might be considered somebody like above you?

Is there an office manager that's doing it?

Is the doctor doing it?

How do they decide who's going where and what day, what time?

How are the patients going to be divided in an office setting, how does the doctor determine which ones you're seeing, which ones he's seeing?

Are you seeing patients and then he's coming behind you and then still seeing the same patients?

Do you guys have your own patient load?

If you're in a hospital setting and you guys have a census of 150 patients, you want to know how are those 150 patients being divided?

Who decides in the morning, when we get there, who's seeing who?

So then once you find that out, what is the volume that you're expected to see?

I think you'd be surprised.

And I'm sure you've heard there's people in different settings, especially dermatology settings, that are seeing upwards of 60, 70 people a day.

Urgent care, sometimes people see 40, 50 plus a day.

In some rural settings, maybe it's much less than that.

Some family practices, you're probably looking at 15, 20 patients a day.

So you're setting what you're doing and what the expectation is really varies from place to place.

And you want to know so that you're meeting your goals and expectations of the people you're working for.

There.

Really look around, check out the staff, look at the front staff, talk to the medical assistants, talk to anybody you can that works there and ask them how they like working there and do they like the doctor.

And you know how things have been going.

How's the turnover?

Because if you find out that this guy's had five PAs in the last year, or maybe even just people at the front office, don't stay there for a long time.

You don't have to say, hey, how many people have worked here?

You can say, oh, how long have you worked here?

Make it something casual.

Try to get an idea of how long people have been there to get an idea of, is there a problem that you're not going to learn or know about on the day of your interview or even when you're shadowing, there's something much larger of a problem that you aren't going to see and you may not want to see, depending on what's going on there.

So you want to know, is the staff friendly?

Are you kind of getting along with them?

Do you feel like you're going to fit in again?

Are there issues, Were there issues with scheduling your interview or are there mistakes with when they tried to schedule you?

If the front office has been having a lot of issues, just like getting you an interview, or they're giving you wrong Phone numbers or telling you to go to the wrong address.

This is a little red flaggy.

Although you're not going to be, you know, dictated by the office staff.

These are the people that are your support system.

So you want to know that they're organized and they're there and they're able to help you.

So issues with communication can be really important responsibilities.

So what is your role and responsibilities according to the physician?

Do they think of you as somebody that's like a medical assistant?

Do they want to give you autonomy?

How much autonomy do you have?

You want to know, what can you do?

What are you not allowed to do?

Some places they'll only allow you to see patients that they consider to be not as acute.

So like in emergency care settings, oftentimes you'll find PAs in a fast track.

That's not applicable in all ER settings.

But it's a good question to ask.

Are they going to throw you in the fast track or do you get to see all the different types of patients?

If you're in an internal medicine office, are you just going to be seeing the coughs and the colds or do you get the things that are a little bit more extensive than that?

And so you want to know what does this doctor feel comfortable with you doing?

And if they do start you off, you know, maybe just doing fast track or only seeing coughs and colds, at what point are they going to allow you to start seeing other things, if at all?

So are you going to be able to gain that with them?

Or is this just how it is?

And that's how it's always going to be?

And that will kind of help you decide if you want that job too, because you'll say, you know what, maybe this isn't for me, I'm not okay with this.

Or maybe you are okay with it.

So again, how available is your physician going to be?

Some people are totally comfortable coming straight out of school and not really having a ton of physician oversight.

And other people, like I said, really want that hand holding.

They really want somebody to give them a thorough training, almost like a residency, or at least for a short period of time, so that they feel more confident in what they're doing.

And many physicians do have the time or the energy or the effort to want to train people coming out of school.

It's unfortunate.

I wish that they did.

But in many settings you're just going to show up and do your job and there may not be somebody there that's guiding you and showing you how things work.

Or really checking up on you.

And this can be a dangerous situation.

And it can be a situation where you just need to determine whether or not you feel comfortable.

Are you going to be delegated supervisory responsibilities of others working in the office?

So if you have a medical assistant who is talking back to you or making things difficult to you, where's your place in the food chain?

Are you allowed to say something to them?

Or do you have to go to a higher up or an administrator position?

You want to understand what does that hierarchy look like and know who to go to when there's a problem.

Again, I talk about how many facilities are going to be required to go to or get on staff at.

You know, does this doctor go to six different hospitals?

Does he go to one hospital?

Do you have to rotate between different offices?

Are you at one location?

This is really important because if you do have to get on staff at different places, this is going to delay your start date.

How often do you have to go to each of those facilities?

There's some people that go to like nursing homes in the morning and then they go to an office later in the afternoon and then they go back to more nursing homes after they leave, or dialysis centers or they rotate between hospitals.

Or one day they go here, another day they go there.

This really varies.

So you want to know what does that look like for you?

Is it consistent or are you kind of rotating between different locations?

I will point out that I recognize these questions may not all be appropriate for the initial interview, but these are questions that if you can ask them, great.

But if there ends up being a second interview or follow up conversations, these are things that you'll want to address.

And how do you determine if it's appropriate or not for the first interview?

Just go with the flow.

How is the conversation going?

What types of things are you guys talking about?

Just keep these questions on your piece of paper or in your mind and interject with them.

Appropriate.

So the physician PA relationship.

I definitely want to know, has the doctor I'm about to be working for employed PAs before?

How many have they had?

How long were they with the company?

Why did they leave?

Get somebody's phone number that just recently left and speak with them.

And I think that will kind of give you an idea of what happened.

What's your idea of my role?

Sorry.

Oftentimes when I ask people this question, they're kind of surprised that I asked it.

And I think they're not often asked this question.

And it's important because you really want to Know their understanding of what you do.

How much autonomy are you being given?

Again, I mentioned this previously.

There are settings where you're going to go and you're going to see patients and then somebody's going to come right behind you and they're going to see them anyways.

And then basically you're a glorified note writer.

So you want to know, are you seeing patients on your own?

Is somebody coming behind you?

How much autonomy do you actually have?

And that's going to vary based on your workplace probably too.

Are you going to be working together, collaborating on patient care?

How available is this doctor if you have questions on a complicated patient?

For you guys to work together on a case, you have to report to the physician to discuss patients at the end of each day.

You may find that there's some settings where you're kind of treated like a resident and you may see patients on your own, but then once you're done seeing them, you still have to go over them with the doctor as you gain more experience.

Do they still anticipate that you're going to be going over them with them and having to present it like that or at some point when they feel more comfortable with you, are they going to kind of let the leash loose a little bit more?

How many physicians are you going to be working with?

You may be in a hospitalist group where you have 10, 15 different doctors that you have to learn all their different styles and how they want you to do things on a day to day basis.

It's not a bad thing.

You'll learn a lot.

But for some people, they may not like that.

You may just want to work with one doctor because otherwise you're gonna have to learn different styles and what people expect from you.

And you want to know how your time is going to be split between everyone.

Alright, so I don't know if you have anything else to say before I move forward.

No, I mean, you're hitting a lot of points.

I mean the only thing I feel like I did some of that, I feel like as a new grad I was very intimidated by the whole interview process.

And my interview process was not intense, it was more like just a conversation.

But I didn't, I didn't know what to ask.

And I mean, it was more like, oh, you want to give me a job?

Okay, thank you.

That was pretty much my response.

So at the end of the day when you get your contract, there's a lot of language in there that is probably more appropriate for attorneys to be going over More so than us.

I would say that most PA programs aren't properly training PAs and how to read or interpret contracts.

And they do often recommend that you consult with an attorney to go for your contract before you sign it.

But I think a lot of people are in the position where they feel like they cannot afford one and it's an expense that they don't have at that point in time.

And this is, I think, even more so crucial for new graduates that are signing something that they're none the wiser about.

You're so vulnerable and naive.

It's easy to end up in a situation where you just sign something that's really bad.

So, that being said, my company does offer a service where we review contracts and we provide negotiation suggestions.

Between myself and my husband, I will say our disclaimer that we're not acting as your attorney, but as somebody with legal experience.

We're able to read and interpret your contract from our point of view and tell you what it says so that you understand what it means.

And then I can highlight different points as to where I think you might have some wiggle room in the negotiation process.

So, something to consider if you're looking for help.

We have really fair prices.

Check out the website.

But one thing with that, too, I feel like sometimes as a new grad or just any grad, there can be pressure to, like, sign right away.

And you don't have to do that.

You can absolutely say, I need to look at this.

I'm going to go home and review it.

I need someone else to look at it.

And if you're sitting there with multiple doctors and office manager and hr, whatever, and they're just kind of like sitting there and they hand you a pen, it's very intimidating.

And it can be very intimidating to just be like, oh, I need to.

Sign this right now.

And waiting to sign 48 hours or more.

Right.

So, yeah, don't feel like you have to do that.

Is perfectly fine to say, I need to look at this, make sure that you understand everything and that it's what.

Has been agreed upon.

Yeah, I mean, a really great example of that.

I was in my clinical rotations and I wanted to start looking for jobs before I graduated.

And so I started the interview process pretty early on, and I interviewed at a plastic surgery office and things went really well.

In the interview, he actually offered me the job.

And so I said, oh, okay, well, I'm going to move my last clinical rotations, my electives to your office, so that I can start getting experience.

By the time I'm ready to start, then you'll be paying me and everything will be great.

And we shook hands and everything seemed to be moving forward the way I wanted it to.

But I didn't get the contract yet.

And I kind of gave him the impression that was going to accept the position.

And it seemed like we were both on that same page.

And finally when I did get the contract like a week later, the salary was a slap in the face.

It was an embarrassment.

I was offered 75,000 to do plastic surgery, office and surgery.

And it wasn't okay then, it's not okay now.

Had I known that or seen that in my contract to begin with, I wouldn't have been shaking hands and agreeing to all these things and thinking to myself and getting excited that I'm about to start this job.

And then when I did try to come back with the negotiation process with him, ultimately he ended up saying, it sounds like you're more interested in money and I want somebody that's more interested in learning.

And that was the end of our relationship.

And to be honest with you, I'm glad that that happened because somebody whose response is like that is not somebody that I want to work with.

Because at the end of the day, to me, if you're not willing to negotiate on anything, that's a red flag.

Even if it's not the salary, if it's the pto, if it's the benefits, if it's the language or the contract I need changed, or the non compete or something.

I like to see somebody do something that shows that this isn't something that's only employer favored, but also employee favored.

Because that really gives you some sight into what is the future with this employer going to look like.

If they're not willing to do anything for me right now, then what is that going to look like a year from now when I try to renegotiate, or how does the future of my career look with this person?

And that kind of makes me a little uncomfortable when people do that.

So it's really important to get your contract first.

But speaking about contracts, we're going to legal matters here.

You want to know, are you going to be given a written contract, an offer letter or a verbal agreement?

And I've seen all three of these things happen in different situations.

Oftentimes some people just get a verbal agreement and they never even get an offer letter or written contract.

Or people will only get an offer letter and no contract.

Or you May get an offer letter and a contract, or you'll just get a contract and no offer letter.

So this varies depending on the employer.

There's no right or wrong way to do it, but I would say a verbal agreement is not sufficient and it is not enough.

And you will get yourself into a bind.

They tell you in school when you're doing your notes, I'm sure you heard this too.

I do our patient care and taking care of patients the way we need to be documenting things so that in case you were to get sued that you don't run into any issues.

You have to think about that too.

With your contracts.

If you agree to something with somebody and it's not written, it didn't happen.

So at the end of the day you have nothing to back you up.

When the doctor owes you a $20,000 bonus and they lay you off, well, too bad, so sad.

I guess you just lost $20,000.

So everything does need to be written out somewhere, preferably in a written contract.

So then you also want to know is there an initial probationary period before your contract is sound?

I have seen some contracts that say, oh, this contract's not sound until your three month probationary period has passed or your six months probationary period has passed.

Because if they decide it's not a good fit for them and they let you go before then, even though you may have signed a one year contract, they're not going to keep it and they're going to let you go.

You want to know if your physician carries malpractice?

This might seem like a strange question to some people, but I don't know all of the states where this applies.

But I know in my state in Florida, we don't require malpractice.

It's called going bare.

So a lot of physicians will go bare and they do not have malpractice policies.

It's not required by the state of Florida.

So what you end up running into is when you need to get malpractice.

A lot of malpractice carriers will not want to insure you because your physician is not insured.

And the reason that is is because see you as the deep pocket is what they call it.

And there's been arguments about this online about, well, how would they know that you're the deep pocket?

Because they're not going to know anything about your malpractice until you have a lawsuit and they request it.

Well, the point is that once somebody requests the policies and then they see that the physician doesn't have One, and you do.

You're now the target.

So if a physician doesn't have malpractice, it makes it more difficult for people to sue them.

And that's generally why they do that.

If you have malpractice and you have this astronomical policy with all this money up for grabs, the attorney may now find a way to get that money from you instead.

And so now the fingers are pointed at you.

You want to avoid that.

And like I said, you'll have difficulty even getting insured with some companies.

They'll say, I'm sorry, I won't even insure you if your physician doesn't have it.

So this can become problematic.

And you have to decide whether or not you want to go bare or can you go bare in your.

And if you do, what is the ramifications of that or what are the other things that are required of you to have?

If you do do that, Some places will require you to have a line of credit of say, $500,000 if you don't carry malpractice.

If you're not carrying malpractice, oftentimes people are trying to hide their assets.

So you want to set yourself up in a certain way that I would highly recommend getting an attorney for to make sure that if you did get sued, somebody can't come after your personal assets because that can hurt you and your family.

But that's a totally different conversation, but just something to be aware of.

So then you want to know, are they covering your malpractice or do you need to get your own?

There's nothing wrong with getting your own.

That's actually kind of cool.

I think you can shop around, look at different policies, as long as they reimburse you, and if they don't, that's okay too.

You can write this off on your taxes, but just something to be aware of.

You want to know who's paying for the malpractice, Is it you or is it them?

And you want to know information about that malpractice policy.

Is it claims made or is it an occurrence policy?

I think most people would say you shouldn't get a claims made, you should get an occurrence policy.

The reason for that is if you have a claims made, and don't quote me on this stuff because I'm not a professional at malpractice.

But with claims made, basically, if somebody makes a claim that you did something and they file a malpractice suit, your malpractice is only covering you during the time that you have the policy.

And the issue that you end up running into is if you leave that job and you go to another job and you didn't purchase tail, then somebody tries to sue you, you're not covered after the fact where with occurrence policies you are.

So if you leave your job and you have an occurrence policy, you'll still be covered by that policy after you've left the job.

And the reason why we see, you know, they say, okay, if you have a claims policy, claims made, you need to get a tail.

Well, you do.

And then you need to make sure that that tail actually goes as long as the statute of limitations in your state for somebody being able to sue you.

You want to know, how long after I perform a service can a patient come back and sue me for malpractice?

And that varies from state to state.

Some states it's two years, some states it's five years.

But however many years it is, you want to make sure that your tail policy covers you up to that statute of limitations and then everything after that you should be okay.

Tail policies are very expensive.

And that's also another reason why people often do not want claims made policies.

Because then when you have to purchase your own tail, or they say, oh, your future employer will probably not, because that's a pretty hefty bill.

So if you want to do some research into how much a tail policy is, I think you'll learn very quickly that claims made is not the way to go.

And I would push for an occurrence.

Other things you want to know in your contract, are they going to be having you as an employee or an independent contractor?

And depending on how they hire you, this is going to determine what your taxes look like.

As an independent contractor, they're not going to take taxes out of your check.

And as an employee they will.

If you're an independent contractor, you will definitely want to get set up with a good accountant who can help you make sure that you're setting aside enough money for when tax time does come and make sure that you have enough write offs so that you actually get the benefit of being an independent contractor.

So I say either one of these is perfectly fine, but you just need to understand that if you're an independent contractor, that there are different ways you'll want to set yourself up to get tax benefits.

So other benefits, insurances, things you are going to want to know, do they have health insurance, do they have dental or vision insurance?

And I don't just want to know, do they have it?

You may actually want to ask, can you look at a copy of the benefits?

Because if the health insurance policy has a $10,000 deductible, you can give me health insurance all day long, but to me, that health insurance isn't valuable.

So you want to know, what does the policy look like?

How high are the deductibles?

How much are you actually having to pay for it?

They may offer it, but it doesn't mean that they're paying for it.

So in some situations, the employer will cover 100% or a certain percentage or 0%.

So something to think about, you know, just offering it may not mean anything to you.

If you have to pay for it 100% and it's very expensive, same thing.

Some places will offer life or disability insurance, and that's okay.

If they don't, you can actually get this on your own through a financial advisor.

You want to know if the above benefits include your dependents, if you have children, you're married, or you have a domestic partner.

You want to know, do they have a 401k or a retirement plan?

And if they do, do they have a match?

Because again, this will ultimately just end up being a thing like, oh, well, we have a 401k and you can contribute to it, but we don't match.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

It's just something to be aware of.

And fun fact, as an independent contractor, you can actually get your own 401k plan.

And that can be a totally separate conversation where I go into talking about the benefits of being an independent contractor and how you set yourself up to really be financially profitable and successful.

And you can have your own 401k as an independent contractor through your own business.

And in fact, when you open it up under your own business, you can also contribute as an employee and as the employer by matching yourself, so you get double the benefits.

So then another thing I talk about here is, you know, many solo physicians don't offer these types of benefits or if they do, their very poor plans.

And I think people come out of school with these expectations.

I want health insurance and life insurance and tuition reimbursement and all of these things in my package.

And then reality sets in when they start interviewing and they say, oh, oh, you don't have a 401k.

I don't get tuition reimbursement.

If you're working for a solo practice that's like one doctor or a couple doctors, it's very likely that you are not going to see all of these benefits.

You may see these in a hospital setting, you may see these in large groups, but when it's just mom and pop shop, not going to happen.

And I think that's an expectation that needs to be set.

You don't want to ask for the sun, the moon and the stars if it's not there, or you don't want to be deterred from a job if it's not there either.

If a job offers you something as an employee and they really don't have any benefits for you, I say a good negotiation tactic might be to ask them to make you an independent contractor so that you get the benefits of write offs and different tax benefits that the employee doesn't have and you can go off and get your own benefits anyways.

Then you get more money in your pocket, hopefully if you do it right.

But.

Leave paid time off.

You want to know are you getting pto?

Is it something that they give to you up front or is it something that you earn over time?

And something very interesting, and I can't say that it applies to every state, but I believe in the state of Florida, if somebody says in your contract, oh, we're giving you two weeks of PTO and you leave, you're technically owed that PTO because it's not something that you accrued.

Where if a contract specifically spells out every month you accrue however many hours or each week you accrue this many hours of pto, you only are owed what you've earned.

But if you're giving it up front, don't forget that this may actually be something that an employer owes you in money by sending you a check if you haven't used it by the time that you leave, depending on your terms.

So something to look into.

If somebody ends up in that situation, you want to know how much PTO they're giving you.

And I really don't like it when they say two weeks, because what does two weeks mean?

Does two weeks mean 10 days or does it mean 14 days?

Because people generally define weeks as Monday through Friday.

But for somebody who's in a hospitalist position or an ER position where you work unique shifts, maybe you're only three shifts a week and you're full time.

Or as a hospitalist, you work seven on, seven off, like what does a week mean?

So it's better to define that as number of days or number of hours instead of weeks.

Paid holidays, you want that spelled out.

What are the paid holidays that you're getting sick leave CME days?

Do they give you separate days for sick or cme or is everything kind of lumped into one number?

Do you get maternity leave?

If you do, that's awesome.

Do you get family leave?

Unpaid leave policies, jury duty days, litigation or trial pay.

So some people are probably like, what?

Litigation or trial pay?

There are situations where you could get sued by patients and you'll have to go into court.

And if that's the case, you want to know how are you going to get paid for that, if at all?

When you're there, other things to keep in mind is unpaid leave policies.

What I'm seeing a lot of now is on these RVU contracts where you are making money based off of your RVUs, they actually are not offering PTO because if you're not working, you're not generating money.

But what they're saying is you're allowed to take unpaid leave.

So it's really contract dependent.

Professional expenses.

You want to know if your employer is going to be paying for your NCCPA certification, your panry, your pants, your DEA licenses.

Are they paying for cme?

And if they are like, do they get into the specifics of what exactly does that mean?

If you're giving me $2,000, does that include if I send you receipts for the hotel or the food or the travel, or is it just for the conference itself?

You want to know if they're going to pay for your association due, for aapa, for your state association, different licenses that you're obtaining, Maybe the DOT certification that we talked about, acls, bls.

Some employers will reimburse for these things.

So it's definitely something worth asking.

And I would even say that some places for CME will reimburse you for up to date.

They'll reimburse you for Hippocrates or different educational applications, which is nice.

Income.

This is always really important to everybody.

So obviously you want to know how much are you getting paid?

Are you getting a base salary?

Can you negotiate it?

Is there a bonus structure or an RVU structure?

How often are you going to get paid?

Everybody usually is under this assumption, oh, I'm going to get paid every other week, every two weeks.

Well, I've been in jobs where I get paid once a month.

So you really want to know what your pay structure looks like so that you can kind of budget your finances accordingly.

How are you going to be paid?

Is somebody just going to cut you a check?

I used to have a doctor that would like leave a check at the hospital with a nurse and I'D have to go pick it up or some people will send it in the mail.

Some people do direct deposit.

Who knows?

But you definitely want to know how often will your salary be reviewed for consideration of raises?

Sometimes this is explicitly spelled out in your contract.

Ideally, if you can write out, you know that you're going to have a review annually or however often you want to do it, I think it's a good idea to sit down because you want that feedback.

How are you doing?

Where can you improve and being able to decide, are you going to get a raise?

Because some of these contracts people are signing are for two years, three years, and if you're doing that, you're likely not going to get a raise because you're locked in for that time frame.

And they're doing that on purpose.

They pay you that same amount that entire time.

That may not be in your favor.

Is there a partnership opportunity available or can you buy into the practice?

I don't see this often, but it does exist.

Some people are actually able to become partners in the practice and they will generate income not only off of working there, but also as of being a partner of the practice and the money that's generated as a whole.

Profit sharing plans, pensions plans.

These exist.

I don't see them often, but pension plans, really good if you can get one.

Job offers.

So like you said, you could be offered the job on the spot.

And you want to be super careful about accepting without reading the terms of your contract.

You definitely want to review your contract.

Let your employer know about your decision after you've reviewed the contract.

Even if you're thinking to yourself, I can't afford to have an attorney or somebody look this over, at least get like a colleague that's experienced or a friend or a professor from school who used to be a pa.

Anybody who's been in the workforce for some time that will know what should and shouldn't be on the contract.

To give you some sort of feedback is better than nothing.

So don't sign your contract without having somebody else review it.

Know your worth.

Do not accept lowball offers.

People that are accepting lowball offers are hurting the entire community.

Mommy and Daddy might be paying for everything, and maybe you don't have a worry in the world and all you want to do is work in dermatology, but if you go and you take that job for $70,000, everybody else gets hurt by that, so it's a problem.

And even if that's not the case, you're just taking a job to get your Foot in the door because you really want to get into a certain specialty.

At the end of the day, we all have some sort of worth.

And if you're taking these low ball offers, everybody in the community is affected by that because once you take it, then they're expecting other people to take it and then, and their friends, oh, I have a PA for this much.

And then this becomes the norm.

So this really becomes a domino effect of problems and you need to think about the impact of the decisions that you're making and how it affects all of us.

I think that if you get something that's a low ball offer and you're kind of bummed because you really wanted that job, I'm telling you, if you walk away, you're going to find something else that's going to pay you better.

You have to keep looking.

The way that I think about jobs is when you're looking for jobs online, every job that's available is not available because they're good jobs.

They're probably actually more so available because they're bad jobs.

Because people who have good jobs don't often leave their jobs.

So you're looking for a needle in a haystack.

You're trying to find that opportunity where somebody had to move or somebody found a better position but they left a good one.

And you're trying to seek out the good opportunities.

And every job that that's on there, like I said, is not available because it's a good one.

It's probably available because people don't want it and there's a reason they don't want it.

So don't think about every single job as a good opportunity that's out there.

I think good jobs are limited and hard to find and if you're not looking, you're not going to find them.

I remember at a conference I went to,.

They said that even if you are 100% satisfied in your job, always be job searching.

Like know what's out there, know what is available, know what other people are getting just so that you make sure that you are getting what you deserve too.

Yeah, people think I'm crazy when I tell them that I do that.

And even though I'm completely happy with what I'm doing and even every job I've been in, I've been totally happy.

I still take interviews, I'm always looking at the job market, I'm going on the websites, I'm seeing what's out there and if things look interesting, I apply for them and I show up to the Interviews and because you can turn down jobs when you have jobs and not feel bad.

And you're never going to know what you're missing if you're not looking.

And so even though you may be completely happy in your job and think it's the best thing in the world, what if there's something better?

And how are you going to know that if you're not looking?

And there's been so many times where I've been in interviews when I wasn't really looking and I'm like, you know what?

This sounds like a really awesome opportunity.

This could be good.

Even though I was never planning on leaving my job.

And so I think you'll find your career path and transitions and success through continuing to do that.

And you also keep up with your interview skills.

So it's definitely not a bad idea.

The worst part is to be in a position where you need a job and you're interviewing and you are jumping at jobs because you're desperate instead of being in the position where you already have one and it's easy to turn down.

Alright guys, next week we'll get into contracts and negotiations so we'll kind of wrap up this series.

But before you go, I did want to remind you about the Keck Graduate Institute summer programs that I talked about in the beginning.

So again, KGI is an innovative graduate school that is a member of the Claremont Colleges.

So it's in Claremont, California, which I've heard is beautiful, but I've never been.

I'm going this summer and you know, we will actually be interviewing their pre PA program director, Jun Kim in an upcoming episode.

So I'm really side he's going to tell us all about what they have to offer as far as getting you guys ready academically for PA school, which is what the schools are looking for.

And just, you know, I get a lot of questions about what else you can do academically to prepare.

Especially if your grades aren't where you want them to be or you're not, you're having trouble getting that experience all at once.

So that's why the KGI summer programs are open to all undergraduates seeking career in healthcare or life sciences.

If you go to the website, there are tons of options and you can get more information about those and see if it would be a good fit for you.

They have on campus options in Claremont, California and online courses.

So if you can't get out there, you may be able to take some time and complete those courses or at least get the information and get that certificate.

Or program completed.

Parts of the summer courses that they offer for undergraduate include biochemistry, anatomy, physiology, and microbiome.

They also have the Summer Explorer Health Professions.

And this is just a two week residential program where you get classroom and experiential learning.

So you're out there, you're shadowing, you're visiting local programs, you're talking to PAs and really getting the information that you need up front before making the decision to become a PA or to help solidify that decision and show that you have strong interest in this career and you want to move forward with it.

So to learn more and browse with the courses, go to KGI Edu PaPlatform.

Again, that's KGI Edu PaPlatform and that link will be in the description.

Or just Google Keck Graduate Institute summer Programs.

But go ahead and go there and let me know if you have any questions.

I will see you guys next week.

Sam.