Hourly NP and pay

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I work part time as a NP in a private practice and am paid hourly (not a salaried person). I only am paid for hours I am actually seeing patients, not lunchtime (even though I mainly chart), charting after or before patient hours (whether at home or work), or time outside of work reviewing lab results/calling patients/etc. If I work full day, I see can see up to 25-30 patients a day so I spend alot of time going patient to patient and have to use my own time to chart. I feel like I am doing alot more work than I am being paid for and just wanted others thoughts if this is normal or how to change? Is this legal? Please advise.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

That sounds like a lot of patients but hard to know for sure depending the setting. If you are skilled, efficient and this is an unmanageable work load I would tell your employer you will require either administrative time or longer appointments so you can chart while seeing the patients. I almost never leave late or do work after hours but I'm fairly efficient and have negotiated a reasonable case load.

Nope, not illegal for an employer to take advantage of an employee willing to work on their own dime. :(

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Specializes in DHSc, PA-C.

Never make a habit of working for free and never take anything home with you. Work on becoming efficient in charting. Do you have an EMR or paper? I've worked various specialties, but have always made it a point to complete and close every chart. Nearly always the chart is done before the patient even walks out the door. My initial training was in ER. So, it was a must to stay on top of everything at all times.

If you are required to go over labs, make phones calls, etc...then time should be allotted to accomplish this. Otherwise you need an awesome system in place to have a lab/call ready to go during any brief break you have between patients. A good support staff would be key for this.

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Agree - no one works for free. Your practice makes a profit from your work so you need to get paid for it - speak up

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I agree with all of you. I graduated in the last 1.5 years and am pretty good at managing my time (definitely still have room for improvement but so much quicker than I used to be). But I just wonder if I'm seeing patients back to back on busy day, how can I do a thorough hx, assessment, write Rx, order labs in needed, and close my charts in that small time period. Plus I am in pediatrics so it isn't as easy as adult care when they cooperate:) If I work a full day I am charting during my lunch and not being paid for this. If I see 20-30 patients in a day I can close quite a few charts but definitely not give great care and close all of them. And most days I work part time, so I feel like I am always waiting for xray or lab to call me back with results and then managing care from home after work hours, even if it is just 15 min here and there.

Plus I am only paid when I am seeing patients, so I still wouldn't be paid for staying later at work and finishing my charting. Thoughts on how to proceed or how to agree on this with the practice?

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Specializes in Family Practice.

You definitely should be getting paid for time you are working even if you aren't seeing patients. I would approach it like this- so they are scheduling you on average 25 patients a day. They are probably billing $150/patient. That's $3750 of revenue and I'm going to say you make $50/hr. So your salary per day is $400 and they aren't paying you benefits or PTO.

Just approach them with the numbers and be matter of fact that you are making them a lot of money. You need to be paid appropriately for the work you are doing. They are abusing you because they are treating you like a salaried worker.

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Great i appreciate your response! Plan to talk to them about this concern soon. Good points

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