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Are you paid for taking call?


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Previous employer, took weekday call and required every 4th weekend call without compensation, had to be there on the weekend to round on anywhere from 5-35 patients on a busy CV Surgery service including Transplants and LVADS...ZERO CALL PAY.  Brought this to the group and CEO's attention.  Physicians were paid very lucratively, PA's...ZERO as stated before.  The PA's did the majority of the call work other than the actual cases.  Was told PA's don't get call pay because we aren't doing any of the hard work....let that simmer for a bit.

Different employer, same specialty, still no call pay, but not required to stay late or come in on the weekends but I still do to set an example and help my SP, and its rare we do much on the weekends, but I do have quite a few late nights.  Have tried to negotiate call pay but have been told that since I am salaried, I am paid if I am working or not.  I am currently negotiating with them and making some valid points.

Point is, get it in writing regarding call.  No call pay=You don't come in.  Don't let them screw you into doing free work and act like they are going broke.  If you ever get to see the $$$ some places bring in, you'd see why it wouldn't hurt them to throw a bone to you. 

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When I left family med, one of the reasons I cited was that "I don't work for free" - though salaried, my pay was based on an 8 hour work day, but as we all know, it's never like that in family med.  I often had other things that had to be done when not at work - insurance and disability forms and the like that MD's could bill for, but not me - that money went to the Regional Health Authority.   When I moved to where I am now, I made a note to my supervisors (ER Director and Clinical Team Manager) that "I don't work for free" and our union contract reflects that...it's neat having a union.

SK

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On 7/27/2017 at 4:53 PM, RhymesWit9 said:

Great strategy! How did you obtain information about compensation, etc from other practices? Did you have personal connections to other practices in the area? I know some information can be had from the AAPA salary report, but am curious about how you all were able to do this. Thanks!

I actually found the AAPA salary report useless because it was already below what we were making and it was difficult to give as a clear instructional guide to the physicians.  What I did was identify 2-3 major groups in the area, ones I knew my docs would respect as either "competition" or a different specialty and were either the leaders (like they wanted to become) or had a great PA system (that they knew about and wanted a similar structure).  I then reached out to these people and opened up to them about my woes and just politely asked if they would share what they were doing.  I've found most people are willing to give details on their salary to help another group out as long as its not for gossip.  So, I reached out to some in person, and some on places like Linkedin.  Discussed with them, and then preped a sheet with 3 practices and their breakdown and showed it to my boss.  He was not happy at all and had objections because some were in other specialties where "PAs do more" etc etc.  It did work however by breaking their resistance to discuss things.  IF I had to do it again I would look for practices in the same specialty, or very closely related specialty as direct comparisons.

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On 7/30/2017 at 7:25 AM, DigitalFusion04 said:

I actually found the AAPA salary report useless because it was already below what we were making and it was difficult to give as a clear instructional guide to the physicians.  What I did was identify 2-3 major groups in the area, ones I knew my docs would respect as either "competition" or a different specialty and were either the leaders (like they wanted to become) or had a great PA system (that they knew about and wanted a similar structure).  I then reached out to these people and opened up to them about my woes and just politely asked if they would share what they were doing.  I've found most people are willing to give details on their salary to help another group out as long as its not for gossip.  So, I reached out to some in person, and some on places like Linkedin.  Discussed with them, and then preped a sheet with 3 practices and their breakdown and showed it to my boss.  He was not happy at all and had objections because some were in other specialties where "PAs do more" etc etc.  It did work however by breaking their resistance to discuss things.  IF I had to do it again I would look for practices in the same specialty, or very closely related specialty as direct comparisons.

Sounds like a great plan! Thanks for sharing :)

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