Originally posted by drtedjefferson
one more thing, can you give me the straight answer, what are first year fap's making in the military in primary care??? Do they get the isp and asp and vsp, etc.??? Is it 70K or 100k or what? noone seems to answer this. Also , do you have to pay malpractice insurance??? assistance much appreciated.
Not sure I totally understand the question and I am not totally up-to-date on FAP's. However, my understanding is that when you sign up for the FAP, you agree to accept a given dollar amount (whatever that may be, and I suspect that the amount has nothing to do with what specialty you are in). That dollar amount is taxable and for every year that you accept it, you incure a certain amount of active duty payback time to be fulfilled upon completing residency. (Note: watch the fine print because even if it says "year for year" payback or something like that... you need to be aware that there is probably a reserve comitment attached as well, either IRR (individual ready reserve) or straight reserves) in addition to the active duty time --- that could affect your future practice plans depending on the type of reserve comitment.
Also, you may have been able to chose your specialty and get the training you desired etc.... but when it comes time to pay the piper, you will still have all the woes of active duty. You will be a Major and making major pay with all the special pay's, including a special pay that is different for every specialty. I don't have a list of all those pays right at the moment but could probably come up with one.
Another aspect that may be of more importance to some than others, yet not insignificant is.... The military has the attitude that you are a soldier who happens to be doing the job of medicine rather than a Physician who happens to be practicing in the military. I can tolerate their attempts to make me believe that I am a soldier first but, the way that they deal with and treat doctors is based on this flawed theory. Generally speaking, any respect that you get is only because of your rank and that is given spitefully because they don't feel that you have put in the military years and heartache it requires to reach such rank. I bring this up now because as an FAP participant, you will have no active military experience and all of the sudden be a Major. We understand the pain, blood, sweat and tears that it takes to become a doctor, most of them do not. I am not some power monger nor someone who whimsically demands respect, however, there is a minimum level of treatment that anyone who has sacrificed as much as we have should receive. It is often absent and especially during deployments. But I digress.
of note... I remember reading earlier in this thread, a question regarding HPSP vs FAP. Like I said, I don't know what the FAP yearly amount is but depending on what school you go to and how much tuition and books are, one program may be financially better than the other.. i.e.- if your tuition is 35 to 40 thousand a year like mine was, I did better (strictly financially speaking) by HPSP. They paid my total tuition and books/equipment as well as monthly stipend. Had I taken that all on myself through loans and then done FAP; say I got 40 thousand a year for FAP, minus taxes..... well, you can see where I'm going with this right?
However, if your tuition is only 6,000 a year, maybe FAP would financially be better.
sorry this got longer than I originally intended
out here.