Should You Use AI to Review Your Employment Contract?
- Mar 24
- 6 min read
We constantly have questions about physician contract reviews and negotiations within our online physician community. With the growth of AI over the past few years, many people are turning to AI chat platforms as personal attorneys to help review documents, including employment agreements. Some doctors wonder if it’s worth having a healthcare attorney review their contract or if they should save their money and use AI to review their employment agreement instead. While AI can be a powerful starting point, it’s important to understand its strengths and limitations before relying on it for such a high-stakes decision.
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What AI does well in physician employment contract reviews
Although we don’t recommend relying solely on AI to review your contracts, there are some benefits to involving it in your review process. It can be a great tool to summarize dense legal language in a way you can actually understand. These tools can quickly analyze large amounts of text and identify and summarize key components within a physician employment agreement, such as:
Compensation structure: AI can extract how much you’re paid and the mechanics behind it, such as the compensation model.
Work schedule & duties: It can outline your expected clinical hours, patient volume expectations, and call schedule.
Term & termination clauses: AI can identify the length of your agreement, as well as without-cause and for-cause termination stipulations and any repayment obligations.
Non-compete / restrictive covenants: AI can flag geographic and time restrictions for non-competes.
Malpractice insurance: AI can identify coverage type and any financial responsibility you have for coverage.
Benefits package: It can extract and organize your benefits in a condensed summary to provide an overview of CME allowance, paid time off, retirement, and health insurance.
AI can also flag any missing elements that are commonly included in physician contracts, or may even be able to help identify red flags.
Where we get worried is when physicians see how quickly AI can summarize contract details, and wonder why they should spend money on a physician contract review attorney. If you’ve ever gone through a contract negotiations process, though, you’ll know that it’s more complicated than just viewing some data, as we’ll cover in the next section.
Limitations of using AI to review an employment contract
Despite the advantages highlighted above, AI has significant limitations when it comes to reviewing legal documents, especially physician contracts.
Lack of legal accountability: AI cannot provide legally binding advice and does not represent your interests. While AI technology has made huge advancements in a short time, AI is still prone to hallucinations and comes with a big disclaimer that it’s known to make errors. AI tools often clearly state you should always check important information.
Lack of state-specific nuance: Employment laws, non-compete enforceability, and malpractice requirements vary widely by state. AI, for example, can highlight the non-compete clause included in your contract, but it may not know how non-competes are currently being interpreted or challenged in your state. Several states have legislation in place that ban or restrict the scope of non-competes.
Inability to negotiate: AI can point out potential red flags in your contract, but it cannot help you advocate for better terms or identify leverage points in your specific situation. There is an art to contract negotiation, and a seasoned contract review attorney can help you understand not just how to negotiate but what to focus your negotiations on. Spending time negotiating issues that have little potential impact on you (i.e. a future non-compete if you plan on moving to a different state in a few years) can shift the focus away from more critical aspects (such as including compensation increases over the term of a multi-year contract).
Limited contextual understanding: AI may miss subtle but critical risks based on your specialty, compensation model, or long-term career goals. AI, for example, can summarize the compensation and patient volume expectations, but it can’t determine if you’re being offered a salary around the median percentile for your local region while you’re expected to perform at a 75th percentile. AI also can’t contextualize how outside work restrictions might interfere with a locums side gig it doesn’t know you have, or raise red flags about restrictive covenants you already have with your current employer as you consider a career change.
When it can make sense to use AI for an employment agreement review
All in all, we think AI should be thought of more as a first step educational tool than a comprehensive contract review. It can especially be useful in the early stages of a contract review and might be able to help you:
Get a quick overview of your agreement
Generate a list of questions to discuss with your lawyer
Better understand industry-standard terms before negotiations
Instead of replacing a contract review attorney, AI can be a cost-effective way to prepare before engaging with a professional to make the most of your time with your attorney. If you need to find a contract attorney for your review, we have a directory to help.
Why physicians usually still need an attorney to review their employment contract
Imagine your reaction when patients think that Google or AI are a substitute for talking to their doctor about a medical problem or scenario. You would likely quickly point out all the times when these tools get it wrong, or when they’re not taking into account all the individual and personalized factors that you take into account when formulating an assessment and plan. Your physician contract is no different.
Your employment contract controls one of your most valuable assets as a physician: your earning potential. Saving a little money now can have huge financial consequences in the long run if you overlook something you didn’t know to look for or that AI didn’t flag.
In our opinion, and in the opinion of many doctors in our communities, it’s well worth the cost to have an attorney review your agreement. Here are just a few reasons why:
You don’t know what you (and the AI you’re using) don’t know. Something that seems straightforward, like an indemnification clause, can have huge unforeseen consequences.
Finding even one thing that is changed in a contract will pay itself off in dividends. If you are being offered a salary that aligns with the median based on physician compensation data, but are expected to perform at a higher productivity rate, your attorney can help you understand this and negotiate for better terms, which can earn you far more than the cost of the contract review. In addition, they can help prevent you from entering into unfavorable terms such as high productivity requirements that can contribute to burnout.
You can go into a new job with eyes wide open. Working with a human who knows you and understands your goals can help you understand not just the terms of your contract, but how they impact you so you clearly understand the situation you’re committing to.
You’ll sleep better at night knowing a second pair of eyes with legal expertise has looked for any red flags in your contract. AI still comes with a trust but verify mentality. Having an attorney review your contract and answer your list of questions can help you feel confident you’re entering into an agreement you’re comfortable with.
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Conclusion
AI can help you become a more informed and prepared client, which can make the legal review process more efficient and cost effective, but AI shouldn’t replace professional legal advice when your career, income, and autonomy are at stake. AI can be a great educational tool to use on your first pass through an agreement, but rely on a qualified healthcare attorney for a comprehensive review and negotiation. Just as your patients shouldn’t be using AI as a substitute for speaking to a physician, you put yourself at risk by relying on AI over an experienced attorney.
Additional job & contract resources for physicians
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