CONTRACT NEGOTIATION POWER COURSE
Hello and Welcome!
My name is Lisa Whitty Bradley, MD. I am a board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon, business owner, mom, wife, and active member of the medical community.
I have spent nearly a decade mentoring students, residents, fellows, and attendings, as well as consulting in the training and education of financial advisors on how to review, comprehend and excel at contract negotiation for the physician client.
On too many occasions, I have been contacted once physicians are entrenched in a financially and legally binding, unfair, and convoluted contract that leaves them professionally isolated and at risk. Because of these many encounters and my desire to serve the medical community, I have created this online course to help NAVIGATE the tortuous road of contracts.
My intention is to provide a concise landscape that you will utilize to evaluate and decipher each and every contract that you will ever encounter.
As medical professionals, we are left stranded in a sea of legalese, convoluted text, and an overwhelming amount of complex data formulated by experienced, high-powered attorneys that are employed by hospitals, businesses, and private interest groups in order to secure the best deal for them. These contracts are created to serve the pleasure of those entities who commissioned their creation. So although your future employers, partners, and/or colleagues may have great intentions, they are in the business of success and survival, and the contracts are structured so that they will benefit and endure. Our job is to make sure you have the knowledge, understanding, and skills in order for you to do the same and better!
Whether you are a resident or fellow just venturing out into your first clinical, private, or employed position, or a seasoned physician who is faced with the task of moving, relocating, or renegotiating at the same position, these critical tools of contract negotiation are essential for your life.
In 2013, I found myself reviewing a mountain of disability, malpractice, employment, and small business loan contracts and applications after I left a private practice position and one month following my diagnosis of relapsing-remitting MS. I realized that I barely skimmed these contracts and had absolutely no idea what the majority of the documents relayed regarding my liability, responsibility, and most importantly, how little I was protected under the stipulations of these legal agreements.
I spent the next 12 months negotiating with my health care, disability, and malpractice insurers, as well as contracting out as a medical consultant for locum tenens opportunities. It was frightening, daunting, and an eye-opener regarding how very little support and training we have pertaining to the complexity of the business and legal exposures of being a physician.
This course will help empower you with the tools necessary and help prevent many of the horrors I encountered by providing a road map for approaching, reviewing, analyzing, and optimizing the information relayed in the contract. As well as providing you with the techniques I have and continue to utilize to analyze the terms and counter with structured and effective negotiation points in order to obtain the desired results you seek so that you have a fruitful and happy professional and personal life.
So what’s in the course?
01 What are the key components of a contract?
02 Who should and must you consult to help you review, understand and decipher your contract in order to compose the ideal negotiation regarding the terms? YOUR SQUAD. And, yes, NEGOTIATION is an essential and necessary component of the contract.
03 Defining the sections of the contract.
04 Determining what are your NEGOTIABLES and NON-NEGOTIABLES? Everyone has them, even if you don’t recognize what they are right away.
05 Discussion of how to renegotiate.
06 What is the last thing you should consider in a contract? It’s definitely not what you would expect me to say. SALARY. This is bait. The hunter knows how to lure prey. Learning how to get it all and secure your future at the same time.
07 Talk to your peers!!!
08 Research your specialty and geographic location.
09 Managed care. RVUs!!!
