Hospital ER Call Coverage and Compensation

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esodeviation

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Just wanted to survey those of you in private practice - What is the frequency of ER Call and does your hospital compensate for said call?

We have been in a situation where call was for 1 week at a time, 1 week out of 5, then 1 week out of 4 due to a provider leaving, with no comprensation. Now one of the other practitioners has decided to drop his hospital privileges which leaves us with three ophthalmologists covering call. The hospital is demanding that we cover all weeks which would put us on 1 week out of 3, and still is refusing to compensate. Just wanted to get a sense of what everyone else's experiences are with respect to call frequency and compensation as we will be negotiating this with the hospital in coming weeks.

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I think it depends on type of hospital. If you are dealing with a small, non-trauma center, they don't need ophthalmology coverage and will be less likely to pay much and may refuse. Despite this, I know plenty of people that are paid 300-500/24 hrs call at these type of hospitals. For a level 1 trauma center, they are required to have ophthalmology call and know of places paying up to 1100-1200/24 hrs, but many pay less. I would have a plan to walk away i.e. Alternate hospital where you can credential that won't make you take call and just operate exclusively at an ASC or that other hospital. They may not agree to pay you, but taking call every 3rd week for free is ridiculous and not sustainable.
 
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I live in a large metro area.
I am on staff at level 1 trauma center and quaternary referral center with a huge network of hospitals in the suburbs and surrounding area in the state
We used to have over a dozen ophtho on staff at our hospital 10 years ago, now we only have 6 that share call with no subspecialty ophtho at our center
Most of the other ophthalmologists and subspecialists in the area have joined hospitals with no trauma care requiring call or at lower tier hospitals
We are paid 5K/ week for taking call one week at a time, I am usually on call once a month
 
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Are there benefits of being credentialed at a hospital at all if you operate exclusively at an ASC? I'm not out into private practice yet and am just wondering about this since other Ophthalmologists in the area where I'm planning to practice take call at the local hospital (not a level 1) without being compensated. Are there reasons that an Ophthalmologist would need to be credentialed at a hospital? Is there some requirement I'm not aware of that necessitates being on staff somewhere? I imagine I will rarely need to actually admit someone - is that the benefit of being credentialed?
 
Often to have ASC privileges you will also need hospital admitting privileges as a requirement. This could be just in the form of courtesy privileges where you don't take ER call or inpatient consults, but not every hospital is willing to offer this. If possible, I would avoid hospital association unless you really need it.
 
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