Contract Opinion. Unusual Situation

[tristatepac]

I started working for a large Urgent Care company about 2 months ago.  I signed an "agreement" naively thinking it was the contract (hindsight is 20/20), started working for them and three weeks later received a contract.  Turns out, HR thought I already signed it but I never did.  I had emailed them about it asking them to change something but they said they couldn't.  At any rate, for whatever reason I never signed the contract and I am more than two months working for them.

If something were to happen, am I covered by their malpractice insurance even though I didn't sign the contract?  I am not looking for legal advice and will not hold anyone responsible I am just curious because I am not a lawyer.  I like the fact that I can leave at any time but I don't like the possibity I am not covered by their malpractice insurance.

Any thoughts on this or who I could contact for further advice.

Thanks!

 

[AbeTheBabe]

Whether you signed a contract or not shouldn't matter as long as you went through the credenitaling/onboarding process and signed a delegeation/practice agreement. You can call the malpractice to confirm when coverage began and if you're not covered you should make sure the company pays for it.

[jmj11]

I agree with the above however, for your protection, I would sign it ASAP or if there are other red flags and if the issue that you wanted to change is a deal breaker, then look for greener pastures. 

The  smartest thing I ever did, and I've made some mistakes, was when I went for a site visit for what sounded like a wonderful new job with a very generous productivity-based salary and didn't sign the contract right away. I had the contract in hand and when for my last visit, the hospital had done some shuffling, moving my position from one clinic (very pro-PA) to a new clinic were my SP (so warned by the CEO) didn't care for PAs but he was hoping that I could "win him over." Now, in my career, I have "won over" many physicians who were not PA friendly (like the whole department of neurology at Mayo Clinic). But I have also run into asshole physicians who hate PAs due to their own insecurity.

Anyway, after that last visit I felt unease. I took the unsigned contract home and I altered it to add a provision that said something like, "There will be no artificial hindrances by the supervising physician or anyone to the PA's ability to schedule or see patients."

Well, this SP was my worst nightmare. Before I came he met with scheduling and told them that I was only hired as a token provider so that his clinic could get RHC status and I was to never, ever actually see a patient in his clinic. . . not over his dead body.  We fought for weeks over this and when he caught me seeing patients while he was on vacation in Mexico (and our phones were ringing off the hook, I had asked the CEO to open the schedule as me sitting idle was nuts), this SP came back and was pissed. He had the hospital immediately move me to a tiny office off the beaten path 10 miles away to prevent me from seeing any patients. 

I then met with the CEO and pointed out the line I had added to the contract. They reviewed it and signed it after me (I don't think they read my new version due to their fault). He gave me a 10K bonus since I was not seeing patients and making no bonus income. But it was still insulting. So I sued them, and I won based on that one line I added to the contract. The scheduler said in the deposition that the SP had told her to never allow a patient to see me not matter how much they wanted to. That was the slam dunk. But still a bad experience.

I will also comment that this was the only job I ever took based on a lead from an ad (in the Physician Assistant Journal). All other positions I created from scratch and those worked out well.