What should I expect for on-call compensation??

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I have recently started a new job in an acute care clinic that will be my full time position, but this office shares office with a nephrologist who is acting as our supervising physician. (clinic and neph are hospital owned). Anyway, part of the job is taking call for nephrologist when he is away (already know of about 6 weeks), in addition to one fri/sat/sun per month. This includes rounding at dialysis clinic, rounding on inpatients, and new consults. All in addition to my full time spot at the clinic. So a good amount of responsibility. However, they are offering next to nothing as far as compensation for this role. Is anyone else in a similar situation or taking call and getting compensation. I don't know what is necessarily reasonable in this unique situation, but I do know that their current offer of $3500 for the entire year is bogus. If anyone has any input that would be fantastic! Thanks

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I'm not an NP but I would definitely talk to them about that. $3,500 for an entire year for the amount of time it sounds like you will be on call is not very much. Even just the 6 weeks, that's only $83/ day.

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Yeah there is no way I am doing that, and was actually kind of insulted that was even the initial offer. We are having a meeting next week to discuss it further and I just wanted input to see what I should expect.

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I'd push for hourly pay for the on-call! That way they can't take advantage of you. Also, this is old but it might help:

https://allnurses.com/nurse-practitioners-np/call-pay-198793.html

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Specializes in Trauma 4yr Flight 8mn.

As an rn my on call pay is: for 24 hours at a time, 2 hours base hourly then 22 hours of 2$ and Change

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hmmm that's a new one I have never seen it done that way. But if you were to get called you would make even more correct?

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

I'm a nephrology APN full time and depending on how many pts you must round on in dialysis, plus consults in the hospital - this could add up.

I am responsible for 210 dialysis pts in three units spread over approx 50 miles.

It takes me (and I have been seeing these pts for almost 8 years) approx 2 hours to do 32 pts (thats one shift in one clinic). If you have to travel, you need to factor that in too. Consults (again after 8 years exp) take me approx 1 hour per pt.

You seem to have two full time jobs!

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Specializes in NICU, Pediatric Urgent Care.

As a Staff RN - we get $2/hr the entire time we're on call - if we're called in it's time and a half. I'm probably getting shafted lol.

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Hey, I am working on a much smaller scale than you. On weeks that MD is gone I will round 3 times at one dialysis clinic on Mondays and once on Tues. I will be taking hospital call and rounding on our inpatient neph pts. (usually about 10 or so pts) Also doing new consults and D/C if necessary. I will have the pager on me 24/7 on those weeks he is away and then also the one fri/sat/sun a month. I am a brand new NP so I realize that everything is going to take me a lot longer than someone with experience. When our MD goes out of town, I will have to do all that on top of seeing my pts at a community walk in clinic so it will make for some hectic days for sure.

What do you think is reasonable for this type of work? I don't want to be taken advantage of and I don't want to accept something too low, and then get stuck working too hard for too little.

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Help me understand a bit more about this. Is the $3500/year compensation just for being "on call", with additional compensation for the hours worked, or is this amount the total additional compensation you would receive regardless of the additional time you work? If it is the latter even a modest amount of additional time, say just the six weeks (or roughly 240 hours) that are already scheduled, it would be equivalent to working for less than $15 per hour. Unless your base compensation is unusually high you might want to try to renegotiate this arrangement.

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No 3500 was the offer for carrying a pager from 1730 on friday until 7 am on monday morning. IT would be any calls incurred during that time, along with rounding on hospital inpts. Any new admits that need neph and d/c pts. This is one weekend a month every month. Also if MD goes out of town we would do this for the entire time he is gone & make rounds at the dialysis clinic (3 times on monday and 1 time on tues). Any clue what going rate for this is???

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I guess the best way to look at this is to look at total annual compensation, then divide by the number of hours you would be expected to work in a year. The "standard work year" is 2,080 hours (40 hours per week x 52 weeks per year). To illustrate, if your base compensation was, say $75,000 (the low end of the typical PMHNP scale), plus the $3500 "on call" pay, and you work the standard 40-hour week plus an average of 10 hours per week overtime, you would be working 2600 hours per year for $78,500, or $30.00 per hour. Now if your base salary is on the higher end of the scale for a PMHNP, say $110,000, plus the $3500 "on call" pay, your total compensation of $113,500. Divide that by the same 2600 hours and you are earning an average rate of about $43.65 per hour.

I suppose the best way to look at this offer is to consider the overall compensation (plus any benefits or other perks that come with the position) and decide if it's worth it. From my point of view, I would prefer to have an arrangement where the base salary is fair and the overtime hours are paid at a rate of about 1.5x my base rate, plus some amount of "inconvenience pay" for carrying the pager on those days when I'm not called in. When you're "on call" you really can't count that time as true time off. You pretty much have to stick around the house and be ready to go, even if you're never called, and it can get pretty frustrating if the compensation doesn't make it worthwhile.

Just my 2 cents worth...

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