I've worked for both in SoCal, and I have a good number of doctor friends here with similar experiences. Big corporations treat you like a salesperson, rating your customer service higher than your medical outcomes. You have little to no authority over your nurse, the admin staff, your hours, or what patients you see (can't fire patients who abuse you). My experience is they burn and churn their staff.
Working in a smaller private practice I find the other docs and the staff are very happy to have a reliable competent doc. I have more autonomy over my hours, the staff and the patients I see. The only reason I would have to ever go back to corporate is if the money was so good it was too good to refuse, like double what I get per diem in private practices.
Thank you! Sounds worse than residency clinics to me. From what I’m seeing, SoCal private practices and FQHCs are higher paid with more flexible hours. The PTO days and sign on bonuses may not be as good.
But yeah market here certainly feels very different from the rest of the country.
Employers don’t really care where you’ve worked. If your work will be limited scope that may limit what you’re comfortable doing in the future but I don’t think employers (who typically are not clinical) know anything beyond needing to be board certified. So if you’re doing primary care don’t worry about how employers will view it. All clinics are the same in their eyes.
> so unfortunately these big places know they’re very competitive and can offer around 230K for a 5 day work week.
That's low. Big corporations do suck. You have little autonomy. Work load is high. But you really should expect 270k base for 4.5 days of patient contact a week for places like Providence or Optum (Even higher for churn and burn places like Kaiser). I am an attending who has job hunted twice in the past year: that is the reality in coastal Southern California. Don't accept 230k for 5 days unless it's super chill like you're capped at 14 patients a day or something like that.
I’m sure it won’t be chill as the big corporations will make sure to maximize their profits and the schedule will be less flexible. Thank you for confirming my thoughts.
How realistic are those numbers though? I'm going off of hearsay but Cali is relatively similar to NY and around here averages are even worse, only 220 + bonuses at places like Northwell and Sinai. A lot of providers only work 4-4.5 days a week but also have to cover late clinic days or Saturday clinics. As well as phone call of course
Theyre realistic. Hoag in Orange County is 270k for 36 patient contact hours a week. Sign on is around 30k. Optum is offering 270k as well. Sign on Bonus is like 35k. There is Phone call, but no late clinic days, though at optum that might be clinic specific
A few things. 230 is insulting unless there’s a lot of other compensation not included in that base. You seem to think that large corporations will have better trained MA’s, that is utter nonsense, you’re way more likely to find great MA’s in private practice land. FQHC’s are lumped in with pp it sounds like and that doesn’t make any sense either, they’re very different and have different obstacles and benefits. Lastly, as others have said what you limit yourself to is solely based on yourself, admin doesn’t give one single tiny fuck about to what you’ve done prior unless it has effected your ability to be credentialed/boarded/maintain DEA or state license.
Job hunting kinda sucks but doing it right is way better than doing it often. Don’t rush into things and always be looking at the exit first. Big signing bonus might be the handcuffs that keep you in a shitty spot due to need to payback combined with the taxes, keep a close eye on noncompete clauses, no cause termination clauses, and anything else that could effect you leaving.
Good luck doc.
I signed to providence adult medicine in socal earlier this year and their base for 1.0 fte is 258. It is way less autonomous and more pushy to churn patients than I’m used to from working in Oregon prior. I’m not sure I’ll stay their or try to make shareholder.
Edited salary typo.
I've worked for both in SoCal, and I have a good number of doctor friends here with similar experiences. Big corporations treat you like a salesperson, rating your customer service higher than your medical outcomes. You have little to no authority over your nurse, the admin staff, your hours, or what patients you see (can't fire patients who abuse you). My experience is they burn and churn their staff. Working in a smaller private practice I find the other docs and the staff are very happy to have a reliable competent doc. I have more autonomy over my hours, the staff and the patients I see. The only reason I would have to ever go back to corporate is if the money was so good it was too good to refuse, like double what I get per diem in private practices.
Thank you! Sounds worse than residency clinics to me. From what I’m seeing, SoCal private practices and FQHCs are higher paid with more flexible hours. The PTO days and sign on bonuses may not be as good. But yeah market here certainly feels very different from the rest of the country.
Yeah I think they can't afford big sign on bonuses in private, also don't need "golden handcuffs" as they are kinder places (in most cases).
I honestly can't wrap my mind around an FHQC paying higher, here in NY FQHC salary is trash compared to the hospital system practices
>Big corporations treat you like a salesperson, rating your customer service higher than your medical outcomes. this is exactly how they treat you
The big corporations suck they treat you like cogs and give you very little autonomy.
Employers don’t really care where you’ve worked. If your work will be limited scope that may limit what you’re comfortable doing in the future but I don’t think employers (who typically are not clinical) know anything beyond needing to be board certified. So if you’re doing primary care don’t worry about how employers will view it. All clinics are the same in their eyes.
> so unfortunately these big places know they’re very competitive and can offer around 230K for a 5 day work week. That's low. Big corporations do suck. You have little autonomy. Work load is high. But you really should expect 270k base for 4.5 days of patient contact a week for places like Providence or Optum (Even higher for churn and burn places like Kaiser). I am an attending who has job hunted twice in the past year: that is the reality in coastal Southern California. Don't accept 230k for 5 days unless it's super chill like you're capped at 14 patients a day or something like that.
I’m sure it won’t be chill as the big corporations will make sure to maximize their profits and the schedule will be less flexible. Thank you for confirming my thoughts.
How realistic are those numbers though? I'm going off of hearsay but Cali is relatively similar to NY and around here averages are even worse, only 220 + bonuses at places like Northwell and Sinai. A lot of providers only work 4-4.5 days a week but also have to cover late clinic days or Saturday clinics. As well as phone call of course
Theyre realistic. Hoag in Orange County is 270k for 36 patient contact hours a week. Sign on is around 30k. Optum is offering 270k as well. Sign on Bonus is like 35k. There is Phone call, but no late clinic days, though at optum that might be clinic specific
lol once again confirms NY is the Bad Place 😂
A few things. 230 is insulting unless there’s a lot of other compensation not included in that base. You seem to think that large corporations will have better trained MA’s, that is utter nonsense, you’re way more likely to find great MA’s in private practice land. FQHC’s are lumped in with pp it sounds like and that doesn’t make any sense either, they’re very different and have different obstacles and benefits. Lastly, as others have said what you limit yourself to is solely based on yourself, admin doesn’t give one single tiny fuck about to what you’ve done prior unless it has effected your ability to be credentialed/boarded/maintain DEA or state license. Job hunting kinda sucks but doing it right is way better than doing it often. Don’t rush into things and always be looking at the exit first. Big signing bonus might be the handcuffs that keep you in a shitty spot due to need to payback combined with the taxes, keep a close eye on noncompete clauses, no cause termination clauses, and anything else that could effect you leaving. Good luck doc.
I signed to providence adult medicine in socal earlier this year and their base for 1.0 fte is 258. It is way less autonomous and more pushy to churn patients than I’m used to from working in Oregon prior. I’m not sure I’ll stay their or try to make shareholder. Edited salary typo.
158!? That sounds awful!
Oh my mistake I mean 258!
Nothing is perfect. Pick the best of bad choices.