0:00

Employment agreement should additionally address the

0:02

circumstances in which the employment relationship can be

0:05

terminated without cause.

0:08

And in certain circumstances, we've seen penalties

0:11

that apply when a physician fails

0:14

to provide the requisite amount of notice

0:16

to terminate without cause.

0:18

I've given an example here of a per diem penalty

0:21

that applies if the employee fails to provide the notice

0:25

required by the employment agreement.

0:27

And these liquidated damage clauses

0:29

appear in many different forms.

0:31

Uh, I've seen 'em where if the physician fails to provide

0:35

the 90 days of notice, so for example, they provide 89 days

0:39

of notice, they still have

0:40

to provide the full liquidated damage penalty as opposed

0:43

to a per diem calculation.

0:45

In my example here, I've also seen circumstances where

0:49

the employer has to provide one amount of notice,

0:53

for example, 30 days of notice,

0:55

and the employee has to provide a different number

0:58

of days notice, for example, 180 or 365 days of notice.

1:03

When you look at it from the physician employee's

1:05

perspective, you want to make sure

1:08

that the notice period is not so burdensome

1:11

that they lose out on opportunities should this employment

1:14

relationship not be working out, that they can't move on

1:17

to another relationship, uh,

1:20

because, for example, they have

1:21

to provide 365 days of notice.

1:23

And if they don't, they're subject

1:25

to very excessive penalties.

1:27

At the same time, I understand the employer's concern,

1:30

which is that if the employee only

1:32

provided 30 days of notice, they may not be able

1:34

to secure physician coverage.

1:36

It's gonna cause a massive rescheduling

1:38

with the other physicians in the group.

1:40

It could result in mis coverage of patient

1:43

and client relationships.

1:45

So there's, there is a balancing act that has to occur

1:48

with these without cause provisions.

1:50

But you know, again,

1:52

this is from the employee's perspective.

1:54

You wanna make sure that if there's a liquidated damages

1:57

penalty, one, you understand it in its entirety, so you know

2:01

that you have to provide a certain amount of notice

2:03

and you know the amount of the penalty that may apply.

2:06

And the second thing you want

2:07

to consider is the actual amount of notice that has to be

2:10

provided to make sure that you feel comfortable

2:13

that you can actually meet the obligation without putting

2:16

yourself in a position where you may be subject to having

2:19

to work for an entire year for an employer, as an example

2:23

in an environment that you don't wanna work in.