Owning or Joining
a Practice
Compensation is the number you are shown. It is rarely the number that matters most. How revenue is generated, which costs are yours, what you are committing to and what you own at the end all sit behind the headline figure. Two offers with the same stated income can be very different opportunities.
Four Questions
Four Questions
Read a practice opportunity the way you would read a business. Ask these four before the compensation figure, not after it. The answers tend to separate offers that look similar on paper.
How Is Revenue Generated?
Understand where the income actually comes from, how it is split, and what has to happen for the stated figure to be realistic. Ask what a typical physician there earned last year rather than what is possible.
Which Costs Are Yours?
Ask how overhead is calculated, what is shared, and which professional and administrative expenses sit outside the arrangement entirely. Overhead expressed as a percentage can mean very different things between practices.
What Does Ownership Require?
Capital, equipment, staffing, leases, financing and business risk all come with owning. So does the possibility of building something with value. Be clear which of those you are actually signing up for.
What Are You Committing To?
Notice periods, restrictive covenants, buy-in and buy-out terms, and what happens if you leave in two years. These clauses matter most at exactly the moment nobody wants to discuss them.
Reviewing an
Offer?
Optional supporting paragraph. Use it when the lead statement needs practical detail underneath — how the approach works, what it covers, or what happens next.
