0:01

Employee benefits are another area that need

0:02

to be specifically addressed in your employment agreement.

0:05

While it's not uncommon for the employment agreement

0:08

to have a very general overview

0:10

of items like health insurance

0:12

and dental insurance, there are other areas

0:15

of the benefit program that need to be specifically defined.

0:19

For example, how many days

0:20

of paid time off are you gonna be entitled

0:23

to each contract year?

0:25

Does your paid time off include both time you spend

0:28

for vacation and for, uh, continuing medical education?

0:33

Does it include any holidays that you may be entitled to?

0:36

These are all issues that you want

0:37

to be seeing in your employment agreement addressed.

0:41

Uh, in addition to understanding like the number of days

0:44

of paid time off, you need

0:45

to understand if you're responsible

0:47

for locating replacement coverage

0:48

while you're out on vacation.

0:50

And if you are responsible for that,

0:52

are you also responsible for the cost of

0:53

that replacement coverage?

0:55

Finally, the last comment I wanna make about vacation

0:59

and PTO is you need to understand

1:02

how far in advance you need to request

1:03

and schedule your vacation time.

1:05

There are definitely times of the year that are more popular

1:08

for vacation than others

1:10

and you wanna make sure that you can actually get the

1:12

vacation time that you're looking for

1:14

and make sure it aligns with the other

1:16

practice physicians that you're working with.

1:18

There are circumstances where people take off

1:21

for spring break or take long summer vacations,

1:23

and you need to be sure that you understand

1:26

how you get your request in

1:28

and make sure that you can actually achieve that.

1:30

In addition, if you have a practice

1:32

of taking a vacation at a very specific part of the year,

1:35

for example, you always take a family vacation in the first

1:38

two weeks of August when you're negotiating the employment

1:41

agreement, you wanna make sure that

1:42

that vacation time is protected in the employment

1:45

relationship so that you don't have to come back

1:48

and have an awkward conversation

1:49

with your employer about why you can't go on the family

1:53

vacation that you've gone on for the last 20

1:54

or 30 years of your life.

1:56

Other key areas of employee benefits that you want

1:59

to see addressed are your budget for CME, whether

2:02

or not your practice provides maternity or paternity leave

2:05

and what those policies are.

2:07

You also wanna understand

2:08

what expenses the practice may reimburse, uh, in connection

2:12

with your employment and whether you know, for example,

2:14

if there are moving expenses that you're gonna incur,

2:16

you wanna make sure that you understand the practice

2:18

policy for how that's handled.

2:20

Retirement plans are another part

2:23

of the key employee benefits

2:25

that an employer provides his or her employees.

2:28

This would include both profit sharing plans,

2:32

401k ESOP plans.

2:36

We'll get to that more in detail later,

2:38

but you wanna understand what your rights are in terms

2:41

of participating in these plans, whether

2:43

or not they're investing terms.

2:45

It is not uncommon for retirement plans

2:47

to have a waiting period

2:49

before you can actually start contributing

2:51

and saving for retirement.

2:53

These waiting periods typically will be six to 12 months,

2:57

and you want to know the

2:58

Outset whether or not you can participate in those

3:01

terms of participation.

3:03

You also wanna know whether

3:04

or not your employer provides any matching

3:07

or contributions to the retirement plans beyond those

3:11

that you're making yourself.

3:13

And then in addition to the matching

3:15

or contributions that the employer provides you,

3:19

you wanna understand whether

3:20

or not there are vesting terms that you have to satisfy

3:23

in order to actually get the benefits.

3:25

It's not uncommon to see your one year, two year,

3:28

three year terms of vesting on these retirement benefits

3:31

that can influence your ability to actually retain those

3:35

and it can influence your ability

3:37

or your decision of whether

3:38

or not you're gonna leave the employment relationship

3:41

or the timing upon which you deliver

3:43

notice to your employer.

3:45

For example, you would not wanna deliver notice

3:47

to the employer that you're gonna terminate an employment

3:50

agreement without cause if you're coming up on a key vesting

3:53

date on a significant amount

3:55

of contributions the employer has made

3:57

to the retirement plan.

3:59

In addition to the retirement plans,

4:00

you wanna understand whether or not the employer provides

4:04

or pays for family coverage

4:06

or single coverage under health insurance.