“On Call” for Full Time RN

Editorial Team / Admin · Jun 23

Call is pretty standard for a procedure area, but unusual for a surgery center - usually they just have to stay late until all patients discharged, not be taking calls from patients especially when you'll be limited what you can do for a patient.

kp2016 · Jun 24

It's normal to have on call as part of your role.... when you are offered the job. It's a little shady to add it onto an established role without any staff agreement. Also on top of the pay per phone call and 2 hour minimum for any call that requires coming into the office it is also standard to be paid and hourly on call allowance. If you need to be carrying a phone, and professionally available to answer calls then that is a situation that requires pay. I suspect your management is hoping to get your time for free. That should be a flat no!

I would do some research into what average the hourly on call allowance is in your city. Even in low paying cities I have never been paid less than $2 per hour for being on call.

nighttech, CNA · Jun 27

My facility has our RNs and LPNs do on call rotations since they do not work nights/weekends. As a tech that works those nights and weekends, we have protocols in place for when to call the on call. They receive on-call pay for the duration of their rotation, and also get paid for answering calls or coming on site if needed. I don't think it's uncommon, but I agree this is something that they should have put in place and explained when you accepted your job, a little weird to implement it after the fact.

JKL33 · Jun 28

We have gone back and forth here in the past about whether or not being on call is burdensome enough that it deserves pushback. To me that is not the issue.

My view is that it is a service that I am providing to the employer. I don't care if I can in theory do household chores of my own while on call. At its most basic, call requires me to attend my phone and to have at least some limitations on what I can and can't do. And again, it is a significant service that the business owner feels they need in order to run THEIR business. So I feel they should not expect me to provide that to them for free, nor for pennies on the dollar.

If this is a new requirement with no change in hourly pay I would personally not just shrug at that, based on my own principles. If these new changes don't violate any of your states applicable laws (and you should check on that) then you'll have to decide how to respond based on your own personal needs and principles.

JKL33 · Jun 28

Also this:

You don't say, but I assume the owners/providers are currently doing call and have decided they don't want to because it's annoying and most of the calls they get don't require a provider response. So they have decided this is something that the nurses can do and it will certainly take that *burden* off of the providers. So...,this service they have said that you now will be providing is indeed of value to them.

Either that, or no one is providing call currently (which would be crazy) or they are paying a call service and don't want to pay any more. So instead of trying to tell the call service that "we'd like to keep your services but won't be paying you any more" they just decided to demand free services from their employees.

It's likely one of the above, and regardless which one it raises my hackles. 😅

Thorp71 · Jul 2

In surgical nursing this is typical though not for so long a period of time and to use your own phone? NO. They usually have a "on call phone" so that the person calling can reach you, otherwise they need to reimburse you for part of your mobile phone usage. I have seen critical care and other specialty care nursing doing call and surgical as well though not in an ambulatory care unit. That is above the pale. As an advanced practitioner I do take call though that is different as I am responsible 24/7 for my patients and if I am on vacation then I sign off to other providers. That is not the responsibility of my nursing staff though.

Mistical · Jul 5

On call is standard for hospitals but not a surgery center. IMO these calls should be going to the doctors and their on call people. That's one of the reasons I've considered going back to an ASC to not have call, weekend or holidays

abbnurse · Jul 7

JKL33 said:

Also this:

You don't say, but I assume the owners/providers are currently doing call and have decided they don't want to because it's annoying and most of the calls they get don't require a provider response. So they have decided this is something that the nurses can do and it will certainly take that *burden* off of the providers. So...,this service they have said that you now will be providing is indeed of value to them.

This is the exact scenario that happened, when I worked at an outpatient Ambulatory Surgical Center. The nurses began taking call for one week at a time, and we shared an " on call phone". We were paid $50 a week when it was implemented, and had increased to $200 a week some years later. Some weeks you didn't get any calls at all, and other weeks it took everything we had to not throw that %#!*@# phone into the river. 😡

It was a HUGE pain, basically. I always had trouble falling back asleep after receiving a call - and sometimes the calls were ......not something most of us would have called for in the middle of the night .