acute dialysis- lets talk money

I work for an acute facility in MI. It is Davita. We get paid hourly. I am at the top of scale at $35.50. Pay per tx is risky....I have seen people make 100K or 40K...all depends on how fast you are, the census, and length of tx.... Fresenius has a contract at a smiliar size hospital in this county and they paying peanuts....actually insulting to their nurses. I know because we just hired 2 of them. They were paid per tx, and it avg. out to like $25/tx. Sad. Very sad.

Did you mean $25/HOUR vs $25/tx?

Either way it sucks. $25/hr or $25/tx.

I'm just trying to figure out if it is in my best interest to go from getting $35/hour or $187/tx. Still seems to me if I am doing the 1:1 txs for the day doing 2-3 tx/day while the other nurse does 6-8 in the treatment room/day, and we both work 12 hour days, she makes out like a bandit and I get a lot less. I'm not sure I want to go to a per tx pay.

$25/hr and $25/tx are very different. You can work up to 6 hours on a treatment. For $25??? If you work in the unit at $25/hr for 6 hours that's $150. BIG difference.

I work acutes in NY metro area for a company that contracts out acute dialysis services, so I float to a variety of hospitals in the area. I work on average 3-4 days/week and don't take call because I am officially "per-diem"...though if I worked full-time with guarenteed hours I would have to take a week of pm call about every five or six weeks.

We get paid $200 per treatment regardless of how long the patient runs for, but most of our nephrologists only order 3-3.5 hours. (Usually with new initiates they only run 2 hours for the first treatment! :-) ) I very rarely have anyone on a 4hour run.

If the patient not scheduled the day prior, it's considered and "add-on" for that day and the nurse gets $40 extra.
If the treatment begins after 5pm, the nurse gets an extra $40.
If I call and tell the unit that I will be there to dialyze the patient at 8am and I get there and the patient was sent to xray and I have to wait, I charge them for the waiting time in 15 minute incriments - which works out to about $30/hour.
Holidays are double time (for base pay only = $400/pt)
All of these differentials apply when you are on call as well.

The money is good and I love my company...but daily assignments are unpredictable and I spend a lot of time traveling. The thing I miss the most is the social outlet of working in a center/on a unit. Since I go to many hospitals and even more individual units, you never really know the nurses you are working with (some are great...some are so lazy I can't stand it), and you always are there as a bit of an outsider. I forgot to mention...these hospitals do not have their own dialysis units or staff- so all of our treatments are done bedside, regardless of if the patient is on the floor or in an ICU. We bring the machine to them (which sometimes sucks because the water hook-ups are terrible at some facilities!

Overall though... I am really happy with my salary and working conditions. I worked in chronics for 2 years prior to this (which should be mandatory to work in acutes) and though I miss the continuity of patients, I do not miss the hectic pace, chronic understaffing, pathetic raises (one of my PCT's was offered 12.5 cent/hr raise) and constant threat of "the state" surveyors visiting. Hope this helps!