Reason the doctor is seeking an associate?

Good:

• Doctor is too busy and wants too reduce his patient load.
• Doctor is busy and wants to reduce work hours, take more holidays.
• Doctor is preparing to retire and wants to sell.
• Doctor wants someone to build practice with buy in opportunity.

• Doctor wants associate to build practice with no buy in opportunity.
• Doctor wants associate to share costs/overhead.

• No start up costs or initial capital required.
• Overhead or costs are a percentage of revenue, not fixed.
• Immediate income and positive cash, although initially small.
• Immediate patient flow, although initially small.
• Location is established, greater opportunity for new patients.
• May become a purchase/buy in opportunity.
• Get to view/learn practice operations/procedures.
• Get to view/learn Doctor’s clinical/treatment style.
• Easy access to second opinion when required.
• Staff is already trained and experienced, also a good info source.
• Access to clinic’s contacts and suppliers.
• Access to reactivate old patient files.
• Access to evening and weekend hours, good for new patients.
• No administrative responsibilities.
• Doctor is responsible for your source deductions.

• No ownership, an employee, therefore little influence on issues.
• Income is slow to build, perhaps competing with existing Doctor.
• Income potential is lower than ownership.
• Friction over clinical/treatment style/beliefs.
• Personality conflict with staff, no power to hire/fire.
• May rush into a bad situation/contract and be locked in for years.
• Practice not as busy as you were led to believe.
• Doctor hires you to help build practice.
• Doctor hires you to lower costs and overhead.
• Your dream location for practice is taken during associateship.

• Always have a lawyer evaluate the agreement before signing.
• Payment should be approx. 50% of all revenues generated for the clinic.
• Revenues should include treatments, reports and products sold.
• Payment % should increase with increasing revenues to a fixed maximum.
• Doctors' hours should rarely overlap, less competing.
• New patients should be evenly shared, unless patient very specific.
• A reasonable non-compete clause.
• A non-solicitation agreement.
• A first right of refusal on the sale of the practice.
• An idemnification and save harmless clause for both parties.
• A probation period for both parties to assure the relationship is fair/equitable.
• Holidays of two-three weeks.
• Not allowed to bring in other associate.
• Doctor responsible for all expenses except licensing and malpractice.