Too many physicians end up with poor contracts and when the job doesn't work out, they end up saddled with heavy costs, burdensome non-compete agreements, and unfair treatment.
Spending a few hundred bucks upfront to get the contract reviewed is well worth it. Firms listed here are paid advertisers on the site, but have all been vetted by WCI and have ongoing vetting by your fellow readers.
Best Physician Contract Lawyers
Resolve
Resolve is the #1 physician contract review and negotiation firm in the nation, handling thousands of contracts each year. Get connected with a specialized attorney who will take your priorities into account, identify problematic contract terms, help you strategize for negotiations, and even negotiate on your behalf. Compensation data unique to your specialty and location is provided with any contract review service, or it can be purchased separately. Explore all of Resolve’s contract review and salary data options here, and use code WHITECOAT10 for 10% off!
Contract Rx
Contract Rx® is the #1 recommended law firm for physician contract review at an affordable flat-rate price. We focus exclusively on physician contracts and are dedicated to delivering better terms with better pay. Unlike our competitors, we do not use contract specialists. You will work directly with Ashley Shaw, an attorney with nearly 20 years of experience, who specializes exclusively in physician contracts.
Our packages are designed for physicians – combining affordability and unmatched value you won’t find elsewhere. Our packages include compensation/benefits review, MGMA data for your specialty and location, unrestricted attorney access, unlimited attorney time, negotiation coaching, and a post-signature support session if something happens within 6 months of signing your contract. Plus, you can customize any package to include multiple offers, additional contracts, and direct negotiations with your employer.
Book a free consultation today! Mention White Coat Investor for discounted pricing, including 10% off our review package.
Contract Diagnostics
Contract Diagnostics' entire business is physician employment contract review. Unlike other firms, Contract Diagnostics is 100% focused on contracts and never sells your personal data. They have reviewed over 12,000 agreements and helped over 2,000 WCI readers alone. Jon Appino was on the WCI Podcast here. If needed, Contract Diagnostics will review an employment or partnership contract and even negotiate it on your behalf. Residents/Fellows can pay over time, interest-free. Don't need a contract review? Compensation Rx is their newest product. Contract Diagnostics can thoroughly evaluate your current compensation structure using Compensation Rx, providing you with the most up-to-date compensation data for other physicians in your geographic region. Not sure which product you require? Contract Diagnostics will help you determine the right product based on your situation. Visit their website today and schedule a free consultation.
Use code WCI25 for 10% off!
Physician Agreements Health Law
Physician Agreements Health Law is a law firm—not a service—exclusively dedicated to physician employment contracts in all 50 states. When you work with us, you’ll work directly with Dennis Hursh, Esq., a leading physician advocate with over 40 years of experience and author of The Final Hurdle: A Physician’s Guide to Negotiating a Fair Employment Agreement (featured on White Coat Investor).
Our fixed-fee packages start at $1,997 and include an in-depth legal review, strategic negotiation guidance, and actionable advice tailored to your career goals. We use proprietary tools like MGMA data to address both financial and lifestyle aspects, ensuring your agreement aligns with your professional and personal needs.
This isn’t a cookie-cutter consulting service—it’s expert legal counsel focused exclusively on physicians. Don’t settle for less when it comes to your future. Choose the trusted law firm that protects your interests and secures your success.
How Do You Negotiate a Physician Contract?
Life is filled with negotiations. You may negotiate with your spouse about who is going to prepare dinner tonight or with your kids to get their chores done. However, some negotiations have much more significant consequences. These high-stakes negotiation opportunities need to be recognized, prepared for, and done properly. Many doctors do not even recognize when they are in a negotiation and often give away valuable information and negotiating power inappropriately.
Keys to a Successful Negotiation
Information and options are the keys to a successful negotiation. Knowing the financial value of your skills, knowledge, and experience is obviously important. However, you also need knowledge about your own negotiating position and that of your opponent. You need to know your other options so you can prepare the best possible BATNA—an industry term that stands for either Best Alternative To a Negotiate Agreement or Best Alternative To No Agreement, depending on who you ask. For example, if there is another job that you would be perfectly happy taking that pays 15% more than what you are being offered for this job, you are in a very strong negotiating position to ask for a higher salary. You also need to know what you care about most. For some people with little wealth, huge student loans, a high-spending partner, and a huge mortgage, the salary is a pretty important part of the package. However, mid-career docs with their financial ducks in a row may place more value on a flexible schedule or additional time off in order to coach their child's team or be available for elderly parents. Someone with a family member with an expensive medical condition may care a great deal about health insurance and health reimbursement accounts while someone else may get their insurance through their spouse's work and be much more focused on the quality of the retirement plan.
Knowledge is power in a negotiation and the more you know about the employer and their options the better you can negotiate your own position. How long has this position been unfilled? How is it affecting the business? How many other people are in the running for this job? When you're the only game in town, that often translates into a much better contract.
What Can Be Negotiated in a Contract
Everything is negotiable in life, but it may not be practical for a large employer to have dramatic variation from one contract to another. While it's a cop-out to say “this is our standard contract” or “this isn't negotiable,” there is no reason an employer has to negotiate anything, especially if they have a nice BATNA sitting in the wings. However, even if an employer can't give you a different retirement or health insurance plan, they might be able to offer a signing bonus or a particularly generous moving allowance or CME allowance to make up for it.
What Percentage of Doctors Are Underpaid?
The variation in intraspecialty pay dwarfs the variation in the averages between specialties. There are family physicians and pediatricians running efficient, high-volume practices with associate physicians and APCs who bring home seven figures each year. It is relatively easy to determine the approximate average income for a given specialty in a given area, but breaking that down into percentiles or comparing it to hours worked or patients seen per hour is a lot more difficult. However, there is little reason for a doctor to work for less than the average in their specialty unless they are given a particularly sweetheart deal in a particularly awesome location. Doctors typically have “people pleaser” personalities and are often willing to work for much less than their employers are actually willing to pay them. Thus a large percentage of doctors are underpaid. Surveys of doctors show that about 50% of them feel like they're underpaid.
What Your Physician Contract Should Include
There are a lot of moving pieces in a physician employment or partnership contract. The written contract is simply documentation of the verbal agreement. But this agreement needs to include the responsibilities of the physician as well as the responsibilities of the employer or group. This includes things like:
- How much you will be paid
- How you will be paid
- When you will be paid
- Other benefits
- How much you will work each day, week, or month
- How many patients you will see or procedures you will do
- Call responsibilities
- Who will pay for malpractice insurance
- What the employer needs to do if they wish to fire you
- What you need to do if you wish to quit
- Restrictive covenants (non-competes)
Compare Your Physician Salary Offer
What Kind of Lawyer Reviews Physician Contracts
Ideally, you will have your contract reviewed by a health care contract attorney in the state where you will be working. It is important that they not only frequently litigate these contracts, but also do enough contract reviews to both know what current contract trends are as well as have access to the data needed for a successful negotiation. The attorney can arm you with the information needed to succeed in a negotiation or even negotiate successfully on your behalf. Practically speaking, it is hard to get all of these things in one attorney, leaving most doctors with two options. The first is to find an attorney in the state your job will be in who does frequent contract litigation. The second, more frequently chosen option, is to use a national contract review service. While the attorneys associated with these services may not actually litigate frequently in your state, the additional information and experience they bring to the table may be worth it. Certainly, this second service is easier to find and probably less expensive.
Some doctors just call up an attorney buddy or family member and have them look at the contract. These attorneys may specialize in family law, bankruptcy, tax, or some other specialty. While probably better than nothing, these “contract reviews” are probably worth about what you paid for them. Don't be penny-wise and pound cheap on something that can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to you (along with a great hassle) down the road.
What Can Physician Contract Lawyers Help With?
There are many situations where a contract review will be useful.
Physician Employment Contract Review and Negotiation
The most obvious, especially now that about 80% of doctors are employees, is the simple employment contract review. This may be the classic situation of a new doctor coming out of residency or it may be a job change.
Private Practice Partnership
A more complicated situation is a doctor being offered a partnership or even a position in a partnership-track with a group. In this situation you are not only reviewing the employment contract, but also negotiating the purchase of part of a business.
Contract Renegotiation
Whether scheduled or not, contracts can be renegotiated periodically. Not renegotiating a contract periodically often means a physician's income drops gradually over time compared to the market rate.
Exit Strategy
Consulting with an attorney before leaving an employer is usually a good idea. You want to be crystal clear on what the requirements are for you and for your employer.
Do All Doctors Need to Hire a Lawyer for Contract Review?
If you are confident that you understand every term in your contract and know how much you are worth to your employer, then you may not need a formal contract review by a professional. But that is certainly a tiny minority of physicians.
When Should You Have a Contract Review?
You should have a contract reviewed any time you are signing a new contract, making partner, have a significant contract change, wish to renegotiate the contract, or are considering separating from your employer or group.
How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Contract Review Lawyer?
Attorneys generally charge by the hour, anywhere from $200 to $1,000 per hour. Contract review firm services range from $200 to $2,000, with the higher costs occurring when you wish the attorney to do the negotiating for you. Some of them offer some limited information for free.
How to Choose a Lawyer to Review Your Physician Employment Contract
The most important thing about contract review is to have the contract reviewed by somebody! Having your contract reviewed by the least experienced attorney in this field is dramatically preferable to signing a contract you don't understand on your own. However, there are a few characteristics to consider when choosing between firms and attorneys.
Experience
The most important factor is simply experience. How long has the attorney been in practice? How many contract reviews have they done? What information do they have access to that is included as part of your fee?
Asking About Practice Style
You need to understand their process, how you will work with them, and what you will receive as part of the process.
Cost and Fees
While even a very expensive attorney is likely still worth it, comparing the cost for the level of service you need is worth doing. Why pay $500 if someone else will do just as good of a job for $250?
How to Find a Lawyer for Physician Contract Review
Scroll back up the page to see the firms that we and thousands of white coat investors have been working with for years. Or Google “health care contract attorney” and your state and hope for the best.
If you need assistance with other legal services such as disability insurance assistance, estate planning, or asset protection, visit our general legal services recommended page.
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