Ask HN: When is risk worth it?
The short on me: I'm a 27 year old, hard working clincal coordinator for a mid-sized private medical practice (by hard working I mean hours don't phase me, I work for the clinic during the day, and split my nights and weekends between a free clinic and waiting tables.. student loans rock!). A 70-80 hour work week is pretty much a standard, and I'm fine with that.
My dilemma: My current job at the clinic is great, I initially took the job to help out my dad, who runs the practice and was short staffed..and ended up loving it. I've worked my way up from a tech, managing 2 clinical trials, to now running 2 of our satellite offices and being in charge of all of the IT stuff (part of my obsession with HN!) I love the doctors and patients I get to work with, and have been experiencing a steady rate of growth, both in pay and responsibility within the practice over the last 3 years (They even put up with and give me free range with our old servers for testing out ideas I have with record sharing.. it's great!) At the beginning of this year, I got fed up with the horribly arcane way we were tracking inventory and monitoring expensive drug ordering/usage across our 6 offices (literally, sticky notes and texts passed here and there)and decided to write a little program that would allow us to keep track of drug usage/inventory levels and reimbursment periods across all the offices in real time. It ended up working pretty well, and one of our docs ended up showing it off to a drug rep we worked with, who then borrowed it to use as an example for other practices(yay!) Now I've had a few offers from other practices and an EMR company, but haven't been tempted away.. until now. I was contacted earlier this week by a practice in the city I grew up in (and have been wanting to move back to) and asked if I was interested in taking the administrator position with their practice. They are wanting to implement an EMR, update 5 out of 6 of their offices (two do not have internet!), reorganize their practice structure and create/implement a marketing plan. Immediately my brain was spinning, by the end of the week I had talked to each of the partners individually, written out a few plans and was pretty excited about the opportunity. They gave me an offer Saturday, saying they'd rather fly me out once to look for an apartment and get to work than twice to meet me first because they knew they wanted me.
The catch: Before recieving an offer, I met with my dad, who has been doing this for the past 30 years, as well the main Doctor I work with. Both agreed it would be a great opportunity for me, and said I should jump on it.. on one condition.. they offer $X (the min salary for someone in that position, also the bottom of the salary range that my dad had actually given this practice a year ago when he had done some consulting for them and they were looking to fill this same position) I felt this number was a little high for my experience, however given the amount of work involved an the significant increase in cost of living, it's actually pretty reasonable. Their argument is that the dollar amount shows they are serious about the relationship, and that they would be supportive in future efforts when it comes to updating their systems. They offered significantly less, actually almost less than what I currently make at both jobs (total hours worked would probably be about the same) I was disapointed, but declined the offer, heeding my dad's advice. They calle...
1 comment
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 10.6 ms ] threadYeah right. What that means is that they'll throw you a bone after they've eaten the steak, if everything works out, or put all the blame on you if it doesn't. Trust your Dad, who has already had experience with the other practice and has decades of industry experience on you. I have heard these kinds of promises on many occasions and they almost always fall through.
The fact that they are inviting you to both reorganize their administrative structure and put together a marketing plan is a big red flag for me. Those jobs are poles apart, and the problem with marketing is it's very hit-and-miss. Healthcare is not a normal market anyway, and if they don't know how to market their own practice something is wrong.
In this case, a bird in the hand is definitely worth 2 in the bush. Besides, nothing makes you as desirable as your ability to reject people. Be nice about it, but firm - say you can't afford it and if they wheedle just stick to that basic point. They will try to wheedle you because they'll figure you're sufficiently financially secure to risk failure, but basically they're trying to offload the risk onto you and your Dad. That's just how business is, they're probably not even fully conscious of it.