2026 Edition
The employer expected a counter. The employer built room for one. This is the preparation that uses it, written by a Director of Advanced Practice Providers who approves these requests for a living.
Get the Playbook · $39 Playbook + Workbook · $59Instant download. Benchmarked to the AAPA 2026 Salary Report and current non-compete law.
As a PA, I signed contracts, including at least one I should have negotiated harder. As a director of advanced practice providers, I now sit on the side that writes the offers, sets the ranges, and decides which counters get approved.
Here is what that second seat taught me. The average PA negotiates almost nothing. The offer arrives, gratitude sets in, one timid question gets asked about the start date, and the contract gets signed. The employer expected a counter. The employer built room for a counter. That room goes unused, and it goes unused again at every raise after, because the base you accept in year one compounds through every percentage increase for as long as you hold the job.
Median PA compensation is $140,000, up 4.5 percent in a year. The spread around that median is enormous, by specialty, by region, by setting, and by who negotiated. A $10,000 difference at signing, compounded through a career of percentage-based raises and retirement matching, is a six-figure decision. It usually gets made in about a week, with no preparation at all.
This book is the preparation. It runs in the order the process actually runs. Benchmark your number. Evaluate the full offer. Read the contract clause by clause. Then negotiate it, with scripts. Along the way I tell you what the person across the table can actually move, what they cannot, and how to make saying yes to you easy.
One rule governs everything in it. If it is not in the contract, it does not exist. Verbal promises about schedule, call, raises, and reviews are not benefits. They are recruiting. The contract is the job.
Compensation figures reflect the AAPA 2026 Salary Report, covering 2025 earnings. Legal references reflect non-compete and employment law as of mid-2026. A new edition publishes annually, because both the salary data and the legal landscape change annually.
Book only
The complete 2026 edition, delivered as a PDF you can read anywhere. Every chapter, every script, the offer evaluation checklist, and this year’s benchmarks.
Get the PlaybookMost useful
The book, plus a working Excel workbook: a total compensation comparison sheet that prices any offer against another, and the offer evaluation checklist in a format you can fill in against your actual contract.
Get the BundleThis book teaches you to evaluate any offer and negotiate any contract. What it cannot do is read yours.
A line-by-line review of your actual offer, comparison against any competing offers, a full benefits and incentives review, and rehearsal of the negotiation conversation before you have it, with someone who approves these requests for a living.
Whatever you paid for the book or the bundle above is credited in full toward it.
See the BundleHourly sessions are also available at $150 for narrower questions.
This is educational information, not legal advice. I am a PA and an administrator, not an attorney. Any restrictive covenant you do not fully understand, any equity or partnership language, and any repayment obligation over a few thousand dollars still belongs in front of a licensed employment attorney in your state. The book tells you when to make that call and what to ask.
Get your number from the data. Get every promise in writing. Never sign on the day they hand it to you. Jeff Brown Jr, PA-C, MBA · physicianassociatecoaching.com
