Maternity leave

[Bo4753]

Hey there! Looking to see what other people’s experiences have been. I’ve had a child in the last couple of years and my relatively large private practice (near 15,000 patients) does not offer maternity leave for nurse practitioners. I previously had to take 3 months without pay, which was tough despite getting a little help from short term disability, which I alone contributed to. My husband and I are talking about adding to our family but going without a big chunk of our income that long is tough. I just wanted to see out there if this was the norm for other private practices not to offer at least a percentage of salary, or if this is an exception...thanks in advance

[atxfnp]

I was working in private practice when I had both of my children. Did not get maternity leave either time. First time I had banked my whole 4 weeks of PTO and used that as well as got 4 weeks of STD paid at 1/2 pay (basically equal to 2 weeks of full pay). I took 10 weeks off so about 4 weeks were unpaid. With my second, I didn't have STD (was no longer offered by my co) and I only had 3 weeks of PTO left. I ended up taking 12 weeks off though just because my husband and I were in a financial situation where we could afford to do that.

The group I work with now is an even worse situation as we work on RVU only- no PTO. So the women who are looking at having babies basically have no opportunity for any paid leave. Just from other NPs that I have known, most do not get paid maternity leave (separate from PTO).

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

Our practice has a policy of using 7 days of PTO then if you have paid for STD (approx $32/pay period) you can use that for up to 12 weeks.