Imagine this.

You recently received several employment offers from group practices and are deciding which one to choose. Or perhaps you’ve been working for a hospital system for years and are questioning whether you are being paid what you deserve.

In answering these questions, one component of your total reward that you need to understand is the employee benefits package. Employee benefits packages vary significantly from employer to employer and can easily exceed 25 percent of the total reward package.

As physicians gain a greater appreciation for benefits, their value as an effective tool in recruiting and retaining talent will continue to increase.

What do you value in a benefits package?

As physicians move through various points in their career and personal life, the items they consider important change. The “perceived” value of various components of compensation, including physician benefits, also changes.

For instance:

* A recently graduated physician may be primarily focused on the ability to reduce medical school debt and only value cash compensation.

* Physicians planning a family may value the comprehensiveness of health care coverage, family leave policy or child adoption benefits.

* Physicians with significant others and established income levels may value life and disability insurance to protect themselves and loved ones in the event of a catastrophic event.

* And physicians who already have adequate medical, life, and disability coverage may be unilaterally focused on long-term capital accumulation opportunities.