What Benefits Should Go In a Physician Assistant Offer Letter?
What benefits should be in an offer letter for a physician assistant? First, let’s start with what is an offer letter? Sometimes it goes by different names: offer letter, letter of intent, intent to negotiate. That goes on from there, but an offer letter starts the process for your employment and for your employment agreement. Normally, in an offer letter, it’s going to be short and sort of like an outline of what they’re offering you in their employment agreement. Normally, in an offer letter, you’re going to first get your compensation. Normally, your base compensation, and then there may be additional bonuses for productions or collections. And that should also be included in the offer letter.
Then any additional bonuses, perhaps signing bonus, relocation bonus, relocation expenses should also be included in the offer letter. And then going down from there, normally, what sort of benefits are you going to get? Are you going to get health insurance, life insurance, long-term disability, short-term disability, or 401k? Like those sorts of benefits. They’re probably not going to go into a lot of detail about how much coverage you’re going to receive or what your premiums are going to be. But it will be outlined in there that that is something that they’re going to offer you for your employment. And then going down the list, PTO time. You should know how much time off you’re going to be receiving. Sometimes this is calculated in hours, days, or weeks. It just depends on your schedule.
And then also, the employment offer should be a sort of rough schedule. Especially in an offer letter, they’re not going to get too detailed on your schedule. Maybe how many hours you’re going to be providing, what sort of setting you are going to be assisting in the OR, clinic, hospital, something like that. And then also your location, where are you going to be providing those services? For how long? So, you’re just going to have a rough view of your schedule or your day-to-day. Also, your duties. What services are you providing if you are assisting a PCP or surgeon? Something like that. It should have information in there on what type of specialty you’re going to be providing your services for. And then going down the list, also continuing medical education, your CME. You’re typically given an allowance which is anywhere between 3.000 to 5,000.
That also should be in your offer letter. And then also if you get any additional PTO time to fulfill your CME requirements. So, those are the basics. Again, I’ll just summarize: your compensation, your base compensation, any bonuses above that base, and then any type of signing bonus, relocation bonus. Then you’re going to also look for your benefits like your health insurance, dental, vision, life insurance, short-term, long-term disability, and retirement plans. You’re also going to want to know what they’re going to reimburse you for. So, continuing medical education, your licensing fees, and any dues for any organizations. Those are like the gist, the summary of what should be included. An offer letter is normally one to two pages. It’s not super-specific. It’s just a general overview to get the conversation started and to get the negotiation process started.
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