Why would I pay someone to negotiate for me?

One thing nearly every expert on the subject of negotiation agrees on is that the single biggest mistake anyone can make in negotiation is to negotiate for yourself. To effectively negotiate, you have to be able to remove emotion and focus just on the facts in front of you. The biggest obstacle you have to overcome when negotiating for yourself is you. Your fears, anxieties and emotions will cause you to imagine things that aren’t really part of the process and cause you to make decisions based on emotion versus objective thinking. The same reason physicians don’t treat close family members or themselves is because they’re too close to the process and can’t make objective decisions without being biased for their strong emotions connected to a family member.

Additionally, effective negotiation takes significant training and practice. Small mistakes can result in enormous consequences. The state medical board, malpractice insurance company and hospital credentialing committee aren’t about to allow someone to diagnose and treat patients or perform surgery unless they have completed the years of training required and passed the examinations needed to be licensed and board certified. Why? Small mistakes can lead to disastrous consequences. It’s no different with negotiating an employment agreement that could potentially be worth millions of dollars and affect your entire life for many years to come.

Lastly, the playing field isn’t level at the start of the game. The employer has a seasoned CEO, in-house attorneys and accountants on the other side of the table. If you seek to go it alone, your odds are terribly stacked against you before you ever get started. You would stand a better chance in a Las Vegas casino of hitting a jackpot than if you were negotiating a potentially multi-million dollar contract on your own versus the employer’s lineup.

I have an attorney, can’t she do this?

Your attorney can, potentially, achieve what you’re looking for in your negotiations and Resolve believes strongly in working with a good attorney. For this reason, Resolve has included health care employment contract specialist attorneys in its team of experts to assist you. When choosing an attorney, there are several key things to consider:

Is the attorney a health care employment contract specialist? Most of the time, physicians choose to work with the same attorney they have used for other work such as estate planning or real estate contracts. Attorneys are similar to physicians in that they specialize in different areas of practice. Family Medicine physicians cover a broad range of medical cases but will hardly ever decide to perform a total joint replacement surgery. Physician employment contracts have as many intricacies and key details involved as a specific surgery would so a general practitioner might not be the best choice for this assignment.

Hourly billing versus Pay for Performance? Attorneys derive their income by billing for their services as a function of time. We almost always see their fees expressed as an hourly rate. This can range from $150/hour to over $500/hour. While a good attorney is definitely worth the fees you pay them, the hourly billing method builds in us an emotional reluctance to fully utilize them. In our own minds, it seems as if a meter is always running and we’re in a hurry to finish up our meetings with them. We don’t want negotiations to drag on very long because the meter is running and the charges will go up. This beat the clock mentality is a detriment in negotiations because it places artificial deadlines on us and works against us.

Will the attorney be conducting the negotiations or will she be preparing you for conducting the negotiations? Many times the attorney isn’t part of the actual negotiations but simply helps the physician review proposals and agreements and suggests revisions. In this case, the physician is back to negotiating for themselves. For those attorneys who do negotiate for you, how do you know if they’re any good at negotiating? There’s a wide range of negotiating expertise within the ranks of attorneys from serious experts to someone who might be worse than you.

How is Resolve different from a recruiting firm?

The major difference between Resolve and a recruiting firm is that we work for you. Recruiting firms work for the employer. Their fees are paid for by the employer and while they might provide some level of assistance, their ultimate loyalty is with the employer. Any information you share with the recruiter goes directly to the employer. This can be devastating to your negotiations when you mistakenly think you were speaking in confidence. The recruiter has no vested interest in getting you the best deal possible to meet your goals. While they seem very interested in you and helping you, they are doing the same things with several other candidates for the same position. The recruiter simply wants to complete an assignment for the employer so he can be paid. There is no loyalty for you because you are not their client. While there are some good recruiters out there, the common perception is that they aren’t much help and will tell you things that aren’t necessarily true to get you interested in a position.

Resolve will help you locate and evaluate new opportunities based on the things you have said are important to you. Recruiters are limited to the few opportunities they represent and will aggressively try to sell you on one of those few opportunities versus finding the best fit for you.

How much does it cost?

Resolve’s pay for performance model means you don’t have to make a significant investment until the job is done. Resolve’s pay for performance model is based on the results of the first year’s income that is derived from your new agreement. Any investment is only able to be assessed based on the Return it is expected to generate. In our FREE Initial Consultation, a Resolve consultant can walk you through the process to calculate your expected investment and how it will likely generate much more in return.

How do I find out more?

While this web site is designed to provide you with good information, it can’t possibly answer every question you might have. All of your questions and more can be answered by signing up for our FREE Initial Consultation. It takes about 30 minutes and can put you on the road to a Partnership For Better Living!