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Physician Contract Glossary · Benefits & Leave

Maternity Leave

Maternity leave is the time off, paid or unpaid, available around childbirth, and contracts vary widely on what they provide.

Maternity and parental leave covers time off around the birth or adoption of a child. Physician contracts differ enormously: some offer paid leave, many offer only unpaid leave protected under FMLA where it applies, and some are silent, which defaults to whatever law and policy supply. How leave interacts with your production-based pay also matters, since time away can hit a collections or wRVU-based income hard.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

Get the parental leave terms in writing, including whether any of it is paid and how it affects production-based compensation. Silence in the contract means you are relying on default law and unwritten policy at the worst time to be guessing.

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