Hi Dragon Guy – hope you had a nice 4th of July.
It sounds like your former employer has me beat by 2 hours by allowing only 30 hours for full-time benefits. Seems like a pretty solid deal. There are more companies out there than I thought that allow this. Do you think they would have agreed to 30 hours if that was the route you wanted to go? Would it have met their needs operationally?
That is nice you had an exit strategy all drawn up. I think the 40%+ pay cut sounds reasonable for both sides. For my current employer, anything less the 32 hours increases our portion of the monthly health insurance premiums. So they basically have that cost built into the 24-hour scenario if I were to try and duplicate your strategy. They have to keep those costs in check because there are so many hourly healthcare workers that work part-time.
Max
]]>Early in 2019 as I was thinking about an exit strategy, I had actually written out a part-time proposal. Three days a week (24 hours) plus full participation in benefits. I even proposed a salary cut greater than the 40% drop in hours worked to make up for the insurance costs the company would incur (essentially structuring a part time job that got me insurance). I never presented it to anyone at the company, but it was nice to have in my back pocket if I ever felt I was in a situation where I had the upper hand in negotiations.
]]>Hi Caroline – thanks for stopping by. That is a pretty significant swing in premium from NYC to FL. I love hearing about other arrangements for getting insurance outside of the employer.
The specs on my plan are pretty solid, I doubt could find anything on the open market that can compete with it, but that is on my list of things to research.
Hope you and your family are well!
Max
]]>I’m at about the 70th percentile for work RVU production. If I’m above average production, I figure I have a stronger argument for my flexibility. I did forget about call responsibilities every 6th weekend, so my hours are probably above 38 per week.
In residency training, there is no flexibility for work hours although it’s now capped at 80 hours per week. It makes sense to live modestly the first few years of being an attending to build up savings and pay off student loans. It’s truly amazing how “FU” money allows for more flexibility in work life.
]]>I would be jealous of the three day weekends as well! I hear you on the salary/balance. It would be very easy for me to shoot myself in the foot with an arrangement like this without clear boundaries.
On the healthcare piece, my wife is Canadian, so we have a geo-arbitrage possibility in the future should we hang it up early. She just got her American citizenship, which was part of the deal before I would ever consider moving to Canada. That said, my job may or may not exist in Canada, so we have a lot to figure out there. I have not written much about this yet. There are some hacks around the ACA tax subsidies as well.
Take care,
Max
]]>Thank you Dr. Medimentary.
38 hours of actual work time sounds like a sweet spot for you. How many work RVUs does that come out to monthly/annually? We have a few part-time pediatricians in one of our primary care practices. I sometimes wondered how the “actual work time” looked given all the other responsibilities you mentioned. Are you “on-call” at all?
One thing I didn’t mention in the post is my salary. I did not have much of a technical still when I came out of college, and my initial salary reflected that. It wasn’t even close to some of the engineers coming out making 80-100k or more. I basically learned healthcare finance on the job and worked my way up. So my salary slowly grew to where I just started making what I will call “good money” about 3-4 years ago. Unlike a medical student who would likely incur debt during those early years, I had the luxury of slowly saving.
I guess what I am saying is that although we are positioned pretty solid financially, I think deep down I will have a harder time dialing back my salary than I suggested in the post. Time will tell, maybe 2021!
Max
]]>My wife works a 32 hour week, 4-days a week and gets full benefits. She loves having Fridays off and I’m jealous. But she’s hourly and a dental assistant. So there is a clear boundary, when she’s home she can’t work.
I’m also still undecided on my healthcare strategy to reach FI. I’ll need to dive into some of your older stuff because I’m sure you’ve probably already written about it at length.
]]>I’ve written about my decision to go part time and I think it serves my patients well. Since it costs so much to hire a provider, I think the employer is better off compromising on a part time provider and keeping them longer as a happy employee. I accept the higher health insurance premiums, it’s a compromise.
Full time for my current RVU model is 36 “patient facing” hours. But given charting, phone calls, paper work, lab results and imaging tests to follow up, it’s more like 50-55 hours of work. Hence my view that full time practice leads to burn out quickly.
I work “part time” and I’m happy with about 38 hours of actual work time.
I say go for it.
]]>