Any hospitalists here?

[fatlittlepig]

Calling out any fellow hospitalists? Would like to hear about your story, how long you have been on practice, job satisfaction, how many different employers you have had, salary. Also interested in hearing about your schedule, patient load and sustainability, and anticipated duration you plan on working.

I've been hospitalist for approx 10-11 years with same employer, large medical provider. Good job satisfaction I believe due to reasonable patient census usually under 12 patients a day. Salary >300.

Fatlittlepig

[CM]

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[fatlittlepig]

Northern California, for a large "thriving" medical corporation.

[Wudoc111]

Hospitalist X 21 years. Overall great job and 14 years in my current job in the Northwest but I think the last 4 years there has been a lot more changes.  I also have decent pay - 300K and patient load is not too bad - 8-15. However, my group is small and harder to accommodate the changes better handled by larger groups. Also the "patient centered" and "clinical judgement" of medicine seems de-emphasized and everything is governed by loopholes and variable interpretation of changing policies.  It is a different age in medicine and I think I've contributed a lot and thus my time to hang up my hat early - age 50. Every hospital, region is somewhat different and it is still a great career! Just hard if you have to give up what works and constantly accept inefficiencies (Argghh, gotta go apologize to the super specialist ($$$$ for the hospital) post specialist procedure for putting up resistance to being the attending physician since I have nothing to contribute other than writing the H and P and fielding nursing phone calls).

Saved up well so I probably am financially independent. Still have a lot skills and maybe when my kids are off to college, I'll rekindle my passion for medicine as a volunteer somewhere.

Good Luck

[PenguinMD]

Curious are you hitting the >300k due to PTO cash out? Or from the group bonus pool for your region? Any deferred comp factored in? Curious on career progression on when you hit junior partner and then senior partner. As part of a large med group did you have to make a choice to go leadership/mgt track vs worker-bee what were your factors in that decision? I find it somewhat interesting that one way to get out of reboarding is move to management .

For work -- is it pure hospitalist only or also need to do clinic? I recall that "thrive" was making hospitalist also do clinics at least in SoCal but this maybe for juniors. Nights/oncall required? This same friend was complaining that clinic and census was getting overran due to large influxes of new patients signing up due to successful/aggressive marketing.

Thanks!

[Drsan1]

I'm a hospitalist, 9 years out. I was at my original job 5 years, admin brought in a National management firm so my group of 23 collapsed and everyone except one person resigned. I left for 2.5 years but due to a restrictive covenant has a 45min to 1 hour commute. The national firm ditched the hospital and their lack of hospitalist after 11 months and the group was hospital owned again. After the 2.5 years the drive/waste of time in the car got to me so I came back to my original job, which is 10 min from my house. Income is roughly 300K, plus made about 40K in extra shifts last year. Workload is roughly 15-17. I like the "doctoring" portion of my job but the other "bureaucracy" is making it not so much fun. Starting to burnout but decided to do no extra shifts this year and see how it goes. I'm focusing on FI and hopefully when my youngest goes to college in 8 years I may go down to part time or locums and work when and how much I want.

[fatlittlepig]

PenguinMD wrote:

Curious are you hitting the >300k due to PTO cash out? Or from the group bonus pool for your region? Any deferred comp factored in? Curious on career progression on when you hit junior partner and then senior partner. As part of a large med group did you have to make a choice to go leadership/mgt track vs worker-bee what were your factors in that decision? I find it somewhat interesting that one way to get out of reboarding is move to management .

For work — is it pure hospitalist only or also need to do clinic? I recall that “thrive” was making hospitalist also do clinics at least in SoCal but this maybe for juniors. Nights/oncall required? This same friend was complaining that clinic and census was getting overran due to large influxes of new patients signing up due to successful/aggressive marketing.

Thanks!

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Base salary 280, yearly bonuses are about 20, there is a contribution plan where they kick in about 18-20 a year. If you work 2-3 extra shifts a month, you can get 330-350 a year in my experience.  3 years until you become a shareholder/partner, there is a buy in at that point.  In terms of leadership, management track, I didn't have any interest in that although there are opportunities to do it.  I view *not* having administrative meetings and responsibilities a perk. I realize that things could change, I think if patient loads which now range from 8-12 a day were to increase significantly, the job satisfaction would change. There are 2-3 overnight shifts a month (average 5-6 admits). I think I got a good gig, hopefully doesn't change.