Texas Medical Contracts
Medical Contract Lawyer
Medical professionals seeking employment or are trying to establish a healthcare practice or own a medical practice often have to sign a number of contracts. Apart from ensuring that the contracts you sign are clear and enforceable, there are many other regulations that you also have to comply with. Contracts are meant to protect your interests and help your healthcare practice succeed but they may also lead to failure. An experienced Houston medical contract attorney can help you draft, review, and enforce medical contacts with your best interests in mind.
Types Of Medical Contracts
Physicians, medical businesses, and physician groups often have to deal with different types of contracts. Some of these contracts include:
- Management services agreements: These are used by physician groups and other medical entities for billing, acquiring and leasing space, providing medical equipment and more.
- Medical director agreements: It helps to establish protocols and systems to verify quality of care or patient satisfaction. It also helps in staff training and supervision.
- Space Agreements: Concerns lease agreements and contains details about rent, restrictions, costs covered by leasing company and more.
- Relocation agreements: Is an agreement between a doctor and a medical practice, or between a doctor and a medical group. It details how a doctor joining an existing practice or medical group should go about doing it.
- Call coverage agreements: It’s all about fair compensation for physicians that provide emergency medical coverage to hospitals and emergency rooms.
- Physician employment agreement: An employment contract concerns fair compensation for licensed doctors and medical professionals. It also addresses indemnity issues and intellectual property matters.
- Equipment leases and purchase agreements: These are the agreements that you sign when you lease or purchase fixed or mobile medical equipment.
Other contracts that you may have to sign include non-competes for physicians and other professionals, and mobile diagnostic testing agreements.
What To Consider Before You Sign A Physician Employment Agreement
When you are starting a new job in the medical field, you need to look at the contract because it spells out the terms of your employment. Make sure the employment agreement actually protects your rights. Some of the blunders you should avoid when signing contracts include the following:
- Failing to hire a contract lawyer that has experience with employment agreements to review and negotiate the terms of that agreement
- Agreeing to unfair termination rules is a common blunder. It gives your employer power to fire you “at will”.
- Failing to research the background and credentials of your employer before agreeing to take up a position. Research the employer’s general background and carefully read compensation and termination provisions in the employment agreement.
- Not paying close attention to non-compete language in the contract. Your contract attorney can ensure that the non-compete language in your contract is fair
- Not having a clear understanding to the true value of your compensation and the bonus terms
Signing a contract that has unfair provisions can make your life as an employee in a medical practice miserable. So have a lawyer review any employment agreement before you sign it because the lawyer will notice any terms that appear innocuous but are actually problematic.
