Pay negotiations with hospitals

[DelusionalEnthusiasm]

I was looking for other people's opinions on negotiating salary with hospital HR people. I've come from a group and have mostly interviewed for other positions with independent groups and always found them for the most part very negotiable once they see a skill set they want. With hospitals I feel like it's harder to appeal for a higher salary because your selling yourself to a HR person instead of a doctor who knows what those skills will do for him. However, I have heard of some PAs doing very well with hospitals. So I'm just wondering if anyone has any tips regarding these types of negotiations. 

Thanks!

[DizzyJ]

In my experience hospitals have a  rigid salary structure.  They have paid based on years of experience and little negotiation.  If they do have a structure based on experience then see what the cut-offs are.  If you are <12 months away from the next salary bump, then you could try to negotiate on that. 

[sillycibin]

What dizzyjon said.  They usually have a little wiggle room on salary just so they can go through the motions of negotiating, but don't expect them to really modify much in the contract.  It's going to be a standard contract for them and you are about to be another standard piece i.e. cog in their great big machine.

[DelusionalEnthusiasm]

This will be a tough thing for the future. Around here PMDs and even surgical practices are getting absorbed into hospital employees or the practice is leased. I'm sure the docs make out well but not the mid levels. Also noticed increases in hospitals hiring PAs to cover service lines running scut for all docs in that field. Hopefully something changes.

 

I have heard of a few cardiac surgery PAs negotiating better but I suppose that's when the hospital is desperate for that particular experience.  I interviewed at a hospital the other day for a Perdiem position and had to sit down with HR and answer the typical HR questions. Painful.

 

[ALC0313]

I ran into this issue when I was hired for my current position about 4 years ago. Our practice is located at a small community hospital but owned by a large hospital organization whose HR I had to negotiate with. The practice itself was fine with the salary I asked for but it was more than HR was willing to pay. As a compromise I agreed to the salary but have Friday's off. Our practice is only open for a half day on Friday anyway so it wasn't a big deal to them. The salary difference was only $3K a year, well worth giving up to have a 4-day work week (to me anyway). HR can be pretty rigid salary-wise in big hospital systems but maybe there's some wiggle room elsewhere.

[DelusionalEnthusiasm]

AnneFL,

Thats exactly what I'm talking about.  Makes no sense.  For 3k more in salary they would have gained 48 weeks of half a day billing, which should far outweigh 3k.  This is where dealing with HR in big systems don't make much sense, and dealing with individual practices understand these things.

I think there will be an epidemic of this within 5-10 years with hospitals buying up these practices.  Unfortunately I think a lot of PAs will end up running these services lines doing scut work for the hospitals to keep attracting the physicians with this round the clock coverage in house.