Contract Question - PTO in hours instead of days

[TerraceHouse]

Hello, this is my first time looking at an attending contract. How would you interpret this in terms of days?

“Paid-time off: Accrues at a rate of 8.62 hours per pay period for a total of approximately 224 hours annually”

Thanks in advance!!

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[clausewitz2]

Hello, this is my first time looking at an attending contract. How would you interpret this in terms of days?

“Paid-time off: Accrues at a rate of 8.62 hours per pay period for a total of approximately 224 hours annually”

Thanks in advance!!

How long are your pay periods? And unless they have a weird idea of arithmetic this sounds like they are trying to design the contract to give you almost but not quite 26 days off per year. If I assume two week pay periods and multiply 8.62 hours by 26, you get 224.12, so probably they really mean 26 days per year. This is the strangest way of expressing that I have ever seen.

 

[ObsequiousAplomb]

It depends on how many hours there are in a work day. Working 8 hour days? Slightly more than 1 day off earned every two week period. Working 10 or 12 hour days? Less than that.

Works out to 28 days off earned every year if working 8 hour days. Earn 2.33 days per month.
22.4 if working 10, and 18.67 if working 12s.

 

[WisNeuro]

How long are your pay periods? And unless they have a weird idea of arithmetic this sounds like they are trying to design the contract to give you almost but not quite 26 days off per year. If I assume two week pay periods and multiply 8.62 hours by 26, you get 224.12, so probably they really mean 26 days per year. This is the strangest way of expressing that I have ever seen.

May be different for y'all, but the past handful of contracts I've seen prior to private practice always framed PTO as hours accrued per pay period. VA also does a lot of its employee categories this way. My spouse's contract is just days per year, but it's also use it or lose it.

 

[clausewitz2]

May be different for y'all, but the past handful of contracts I've seen prior to private practice always framed PTO as hours accrued per pay period. VA also does a lot of its employee categories this way. My spouse's contract is just days per year, but it's also use it or lose it.

Hours per pay period I totally get, but what's this hundredths-of-an-hour business?

 

[hamstergang]

Hours per pay period I totally get, but what's this hundredths-of-an-hour business?

To add up to the right number of days by the end of the year. I get 28 days of PTO, plus 6 holidays so 34 total per year. Each day is considered 7.5 hours (taking away a half hour for lunch, though I'm salary so it doesn't really matter) so that's 255 hours of PTO per year. For each of my 26 pay periods per year, I therefore accumulate 9.8076923... hours.

But if you're just talking about the extra 0.12 days per year, I assume we're either missing something or they are in terms of the math.

 

[WisNeuro]

Hours per pay period I totally get, but what's this hundredths-of-an-hour business?

I believe the VA just does whole hours, but every hospital system I've been in outside of the VA has had some fractional system. Like 9.21 hours per pay period from years 1-3, 11.41 for 4-10, etc, etc. Weird, but I'm sure some midlevel bean counter is making good money figuring out these formulae.

 

[FlowRate]

To add up to the right number of days by the end of the year. I get 28 days of PTO, plus 6 holidays so 34 total per year. Each day is considered 7.5 hours (taking away a half hour for lunch, though I'm salary so it doesn't really matter) so that's 255 hours of PTO per year. For each of my 26 pay periods per year, I therefore accumulate 9.8076923... hours.

But if you're just talking about the extra 0.12 days per year, I assume we're either missing something or they are in terms of the math.

They rounded up from 8.61538461538.

My job also does PTO/ETO/Sick Leave in hours. What's weird to me is that technically we're also paid in terms of hours and have to fill out a timecard. I haven't bothered to run this by an attorney but I don't get how they get around some other possible hourly worker restrictions/rights given we're definitely not salary.

 

[clozareal]

This is not strange at all and how almost every other full time job accrues PTO outside of medicine. You get a certain number of hours per pay period and it looks like you get 1 full day off per pay period which is reasonable. You can negotiate to get an extra 0.125 hours per pay period for each year you stay with that employer as a retention bonus to equal about 3 extra days of PTO per year you stay there (this is a bit high and they might come down to 0.0625 which would also be good).

If you have 8 working hours per day, it looks like you get 28 days off per year which is higher than average if this is truly only PTO and not including federal holidays, sick time, parental leave, etc.

 

[Mass Effect]

This is not strange at all and how almost every other full time job accrues PTO outside of medicine. You get a certain number of hours per pay period and it looks like you get 1 full day off per pay period which is reasonable. You can negotiate to get an extra 0.125 hours per pay period for each year you stay with that employer as a retention bonus to equal about 3 extra days of PTO per year you stay there (this is a bit high and they might come down to 0.0625 which would also be good).

If you have 8 working hours per day, it looks like you get 28 days off per year which is higher than average if this is truly only PTO and not including federal holidays, sick time, parental leave, etc.

It is true that most other jobs accrue PTO this way, I'm disappointingly surprised that 28 days is considered higher than average for a physician. That's less than 6 weeks.

 

[comp1]

The VA used to require physicians to take whole days off, as recently as 2 years ago. Physicians can now take sick or vacation leave in hour increments. It's true that non-physician federal employees can take off in 15 minute increments, but I don't know if that is very useful. Unlike other federal employees, VA physicians (and nurses) start off from day one at accruing the maximum 26 vacation days, 13 sick days and all 10 federal holidays per year. Leave accrual rate does not change over time unlike for other feds, but your pension does improve slightly at year 20.