Associate compensation

Associate compensation is most commonly structured as a percentage of the associate's own production or collections (often somewhere in the range of 25 to 35 percent, varying by market, specialty and experience) rather than a flat salary, which ties the associate's income directly to their clinical output and gives the practice a variable rather than fixed labor cost for that provider.

Whether the percentage is based on production or collections matters more than it might first appear. Production-based pay rewards the associate the moment they complete the work, regardless of whether the practice ever actually collects the full fee; collections-based pay only pays out once the money is actually in the bank, which shifts some of the insurance and billing risk onto the associate. Practices should be explicit about which model they're using and why, since associates evaluating an offer often assume production-based pay by default.

A daily guarantee is frequently layered on top of the percentage during an associate's early ramp-up period, protecting their income while their schedule and patient base are still building, with the understanding, made explicit upfront, that the guarantee is temporary and expected to be outgrown as production increases.