Would you get low census in scenario?

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Want to ask everyone about a scenario. Follow what I'm saying.

You are regularly scheduled to work three 12's on Sunday, Monday , and Thursday.

You are called on Wednesday and asked to work, you agree.

You've hit your hours for the week after working Wednesday.

You're set to work your regularly scheduled day on Thursday. Of everyone scheduled, it is not your turn to be low censused.

In this scenario, does your hospital low census you because it will be OT hours or do they let you work and low census by turn?

There are obviously 2 ways of looking at this scenario, from a financial sense, it is best to low census the person, however doing so also discourages people from agreeing to come in on unscheduled days.

So, what's your employer's position?

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

We do low census by turn. Exclusively UNLESS people take it voluntarily.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

The hospital where I worked would always call off the nurse who'd be in OT, even if it was her/his scheduled shift.

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Specializes in CICU.
The hospital where I worked would always call off the nurse who'd be in OT, even if it was her/his scheduled shift.

Which is a great reason to never come in extra when asked...

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
Which is a great reason to never come in extra when asked...

I agree. The only nurses who would come in extra were the ones who either lived for the job or had no life.

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Anyone in overtime is canceled first followed by anyone who's expected to be in overtime before the week ends.

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

What is this low census of which you speak? We don't have enough staff to do the daily work as it is. However, once upon a time when we did, it was volunteers (no shortage of those) or people who would be getting overtime first (not counting call back as that is paid at time and a half whether one has reached overtime or not). Then it went by alphabetical order (for those working 1st shift- with only the bare minimum to meet trauma center standards for staffing in the OR on second and third shift, those people couldn't be low census).

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The hospital where I worked would always call off the nurse who'd be in OT, even if it was her/his scheduled shift.

Ours would have the person come in if they were low on nurses and really needed him or her. However that OT nurse would also be the first one off the list if they needed to send someone home or put them on call.

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Specializes in LTC, med/surg, hospice.

Overtime, PRN, partime and lastly full time by turn

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Specializes in PACU, pre/postoperative, ortho.

We never take OT into acct when determining who gets off for low census. If you're willing to come in & pick up extra hrs, you shouldn't have to forfeit the benefit to your paycheck.

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