How does your hospital handle this?

[Tiffany, RN, BSN]

Friday was my first day in the OR and I spent it reading through policy and procedure manuals, both for the hospital and for the OR (boring I know):zzzzz. As I was going through the hospital policy on holidays, I noticed that the "paid" holidays I will enjoy as an OR nurse are actually time taken from my PTO bank. When I called the nursing office to clarify and get a rationale, the lady said "if you're a 40-hour person, I have to make sure you get paid 40 hours each week, even on holiday weeks so you have to use your PTO to bring your check up to 40 hours." How does your hospital handle this and how do you feel about PTO being used for "paid holidays?":confused:

[RacheloneRN]

Our facility also charges us PTO for "holidays." I think it sucks, but I guess you just have to factor holidays into your PTO when considering using it. I'm glad to hear we aren't the only ones.

[babaz]

We have to use our PTO (we call it Earned Time) for holidays unless we are on call and come in to work. Then we would only use enough Earned Time to make it a full paid day. I thought that sucked too when I first started.

[Justme123]

We get paid for the holiday and time and a half if we come in, so it's actually double time and a half if we work. No time out of our paid time off is taken out of our bank.

[shodobe]

Actuallt that is normal for a facility to do that. We get our paid holiday hours factored over the year and it is given to us in our PTO. It is up to us whether we want to get paid ot not. This last July 4th I took call for one of my friends and I worked some and then worked alot over the Sat and Sun weekend. I decided I would use my PTO at a time I would need it. The pay I got over the 3 days was enough so I took the 4th without pay.

[ewattsjt]

Same as shodobe!

[lockheart678]

We have to take time from our PTO bank if we want to be paid for holidays as well. Since I'm a new grad and have never worked in the medical field, I think it is very strange. Everyone else I know gets paid for the holidays, but I only do if I work or if I use my time.

[ewattsjt]

Working in the health care field was the first time I have ran into this pay system. At first I thought it would be bad. I always knew how much time I could take off up front. I was shocked that my bank would be spent on holidays. In fact, I thought to myself, “How could a bunch of educated professionals go for something like that?” I figured that they wouldn't and I must be thinking wrong. I sat down and figured it out. I actually earn more time off than I was given in the traditional style of having set time limits and paid holidays. Once getting used to the system, I love it. It is easy to figure and to make work for you schedule.

I am sorry that I didn’t have time to go into it on my previous post but here is how it works for us:

PTO is earned by hours worked. Ie you are given 7.2 hrs PTO (just starting employees) every pay period (biweekly) if you work all 80 hrs. This time increases to 8 something with 10 or 15 years of seniority. Time can not be earned while off (typically they do give it during a week of vacation). So I will do the figures for an 8 hr shift that is full time 80 hrs biweekly so you can see how it benefits me. Systems are different but follow my rational, apply it to your situation (plugging in your facility’s numbers) and see what you employer is really offering.

52 weeks divided by 2 (for biweekly pay) = 26weeks x 7.2 hrs PTO earned = 187.2 hrs divided by 8 hr shifts = 23.4 days per year (possible to earn) PTO.

With 23.4 days one has to start subtracting the holidays. We have 8 (I think) LOL. That leaves us with 15.4 days. Most places that are not on such a system typically offer a few paid sick days (3-5) so take I will take the mean off (4 days) 15.4 - 4 = 11.4. Now we take about a day or two off for not earning PTO while being off. That would give us about 10 days left for vacation or (two weeks).

As you can see, for my facility it comes out to all holidays paid, 4 paid sick days and two weeks vacation (for someone starting).

Then you have to factor in using this system to your advantage. At my facility, you can request not to be paid on a holiday but it has to be requested in advance but you do not get a full week pay. So if you can afford it, you can put up to 8 days back to vacation.

If you want to attempt to get more money, you can work on the holiday; you get double time and if you did not request not to be paid PTO, you get it too. However there is no guarantee that you will work while being on call.

Figure your system then compare it to what you expected, you may be surprised.

[shodobe]

We have to take time from our PTO bank if we want to be paid for holidays as well. Since I'm a new grad and have never worked in the medical field, I think it is very strange. Everyone else I know gets paid for the holidays, but I only do if I work or if I use my time.

If your PTO works like most you are being paid for holidays. It use to be loooooong time ago we would have 8 hours put into our PTO to pay us for, let's say, July 4th. That was easy. Now what thet do is factor over the year how many holidays are paid. Your PTO, before factoring in holiday pay, is based on how many years you have worked at the hospital. I have worked here 31 years so I get about 10.0 hours per pay period. The hospital recognizes 6 holidays so that is a total of 48 hours of pay. we have 26 pay periods, divide 26 into 48 and you get about 1.8 hours. Add this onto the 10 hours and I get, if I work the full 80 hours per pay period, 11.8 hours. I can use this however I please during the year. So you see I do get holiday pay, it just doesn't really show as that.

[Owensaunt]

Alot of facilites do this. If you work the holiday usually 8 hours of time will be added to the PTO bank in addition to time and a half. Beware some hospitzals don't even recognize holidays unless they're the "federal" holidays of Memorial day, the fourth of July and labor day. Some (like Duke Univ.) don't recognize ANY.