Can someone tell me how PTO works?

[Nightingale11]

Every year I know my hospital gets paid time off (on website)......if you don take your paid time off, can it add up year after year or not?

[FLArn]

Depends on your facilities' policy, sometimes none carries over but you can cash out some or all of it; some places lets you carry over part or all of your accumulated time. Where I am we can cash out up to 10 days twice a year as long as you are left with at least 10 days afterwards, we can accumulate up o 40 or 50 days (it changed recently) then we are required to use it down to the max bankable days.

[caliotter3]

Make certain you find out the policy of your facility now so that you are not on the losing end of things at the end of the year. Whether you take the days or cash them out it is worth a considerable amount of money to you to get what you are entitled. If you want to take days off you have to get the ok as the facility can't have 80% of the employees all trying to get their PTO during the last two weeks of the year.

[ScrubMan0416]

Like the others have stated it depends on your company's policy. The way we accrue PTO is based on a few factors; whether you are full time/part time/PRN, and how long you have been with the company (we have three tiers; 1-5 years, 5-10 years, and 10 years +).

I have been at the same hospital for three and a half years working 36 hours a week (three 12 hour shifts). Each pay period, I accumulate 7.077 hours PTO.

All PTO accumulated goes into a "bank" where we can track how much we have, and how much we have used. We do not have to use what we have accrued by the end of the year, but our "bank" caps at 350 hours.

Hope this helps/explains some of the questions you had!

[Otessa, BSN, RN]

When I worked in a hospital and was an hourly employee the time accrued from year to year-there was a maximum amount you could have in your PTO bank-200 hours or so. If it went over that you were given the cash equivalent and then were brought down to below 200 hours.

When I left my job I had been there for over 10 years so they had to pay out the rest of my PTO time in full. If I had been there less then 10 years I would have only been paid out a portion of the remainder of my PTO time.

Now I am salaried and receive 21 days of vacation/year ( don't work holidays or weekends so this goes a long way)-I need to use all but 5 days by the end of the year-5 days will be rolled over to the next year to be used.

otessa

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Our PTO is seperate from vacation time. PTO time needs to be used by end of the year OR remainder is banked as long term sick which you can take after 3 consecutive days of illness.

So you can see by the replies, there is varriation. Check your policy and procedure manual for info or ask your HR department.

[Nightingale11]

I just found out that my hospital gives you 7.69 hrs per pay period (26 in a year) and I can bank up to 240 hours of PTO and then after 240 hours it goes toward sick days or they pay you the extra PTO.

So if you work 8 hr days thats 30 days off......could you take all of that and then add it to mat leave?

[mamamerlee, LPN]

Ask your HR dept. Look in your employee handbook. Each facility is different.