Any pay cuts from covid?

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urge

urge

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How much? For how long?

Any contracts rescinded, specially for new grads?
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We are down to base salary for a while until our volume settles out.

I know some Mednax sites have pushed back start dates... with some worries the job might not be there at all.
 
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Some places like us are still, for now, hiring. But not sure how much longer that will be the case we have certainly had some inquiries.
 
SaltyDog said:
Ask again in 2 months when our April AR’s are in.
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so you paid out your earlier money? We have been holding on for dear life for months hoping to ride out a months long massive dip in collections. Plenty of cash on hand right now but we did not pay that out to partners to spend as they like.
 
Academic W2 Employee

1) Base intact (small win)
2) Overtime / incentivized hours withheld (unhappy about this)
3) Quarterly / End of Year Bonus canceled (understandable)
4) 401 A retirement contributions halted (understandable but unhappy)

In this climate all you can do is ride out the storm. Could be a lot worse.
 
Zekchar said:
Academic W2 Employee

1) Base intact (small win)
2) Overtime / incentivized hours withheld (unhappy about this)
3) Quarterly / End of Year Bonus canceled (understandable)
4) 401 A retirement contributions halted (understandable but unhappy)

In this climate all you can do is ride out the storm. Could be a lot worse.
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Did they offer the option to furlough?
 
Zekchar said:
Academic W2 Employee

1) Base intact (small win)
2) Overtime / incentivized hours withheld (unhappy about this)
3) Quarterly / End of Year Bonus canceled (understandable)
4) 401 A retirement contributions halted (understandable but unhappy)

In this climate all you can do is ride out the storm. Could be a lot worse.
Click to expand...

Curious how it works in academics. Do you still go in to work every day or stay home when there’s no work?
 
Zekchar said:
Academic W2 Employee

1) Base intact (small win)
2) Overtime / incentivized hours withheld (unhappy about this)
3) Quarterly / End of Year Bonus canceled (understandable)
4) 401 A retirement contributions halted (understandable but unhappy)

In this climate all you can do is ride out the storm. Could be a lot worse.
Click to expand...

Academic W2
1. We continued to collect our usual income. It’s not clear if they will have to drop our income a bit next year or more likely just budget for a smaller bonus for 2021.
2. Call/incentivized time paid. You did the work, you get the pay.
3. End of year bonus expected to be zero this year. Base bonus is usually 10-15%. Not confirmed because we don’t know how the AR will work out in the end. Those that gave away call/incentivized time (me) will likely have to write a check as it won’t be balanced out in the bonus. Could be worse.
4. 401k and retirement annuity contributions continued.
No annual raise is expected. The nurses and other staff also will be getting no bonus, no performance bonus, and no raise.
If we burn through the back log of cases and turn things around, and the patients still have insurance, we may get a supplemental bonus down the line to make up for the cuts. They’ve done that before when we were flying high.
The extra time off (several days a week) are on the books as academic time. We don’t come in those days, unless you want to work in your office. As things ramp up over the next month or so, and we are busting our humps to kill the enormous back log of cases, academic time will be more limited. That may be problematic for some faculty, but we have to right the ship and there are thousands of non urgent cases waiting, plus the usual summer rush. So we will be screwed long and hard come June-September, and probably through Christmas. If they don’t get things up and running soon, we will need a year to catch up. A sad year of regular late nights, extra weekend calls, etc. Just what I went into Academia to do.
I tell you what I worry about, not really burn out, but late hours and extra weekend shifts becoming the norm. That could make me go looking for an exit strategy. I came here to get out at 3 and take one call a month, that I give away.
 
My practice is academic, mainly ICU and we have continued to work usual hours + ~50% extra to cover COVID units (paid hourly at a measly rate).

No word on what our end of year bonus will look like, but wouldn't be surprised if they try to screw us over. Also wouldn't be surprised if our ramp-up period ends up keeping us working even more than we currently are at no added compensation.

IlDestriero said:
I tell you what I worry about, not really burn out, but late hours and extra weekend shifts becoming the norm. That could make me go looking for an exit strategy. I came here to get out at 3 and take one call a month, that I give away.
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I have that worry as well (more so because we never got a "break"). But don't see how it'll be easy finding another job in this climate. As much as you hate to say it, we are lucky to still have jobs.
 
Private, we went down to just our low monthly base to conserve as much cash as possible. All quarterly disbursements, reimbursements, extra pays, etc are on hold until this improves. Elective cases are starting to come back, though, and we're assessing possibilities for elective cases on weekends to get through the backlog, if we fill up the regular week.
 
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nimbus said:
Curious how it works in academics. Do you still go in to work every day or stay home when there’s no work?
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It ended up being 1 day off every week and a half for approximately 6-8 weeks with us ramping back up to a normal schedule now. It was docked as sick leave. Some long tenured older docs were taken out of the rotation and got 2 months of paid "vacation" while using up 40 sick days. Not very fair, but such is life. It feels like some sort of reverse age discrimination, but what do I know.
 
Mman said:
so you paid out your earlier money? We have been holding on for dear life for months hoping to ride out a months long massive dip in collections. Plenty of cash on hand right now but we did not pay that out to partners to spend as they like.
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Keep in mind we are MD only on a production based model. No employees (the the few people in the track are production based also), no real fixed expenses. No reason not to disburse everyone’s money. We’ve all seen this coming for months now. Everyone can be a big boy/girl and budget for themselves. We effectively ran at 25% for 6-7 weeks, and are now really close to full volume.

The only money we’ve held, is retirement contributions (at the discretion of each partner). It’s been placed into an escrow account pre-tax. If needed, each partner can elect to take that money as income. If not needed, it will get released to your 401k.
 
W2 academics - no cuts announced yet but I wish they’d just get it over with. If they announce them all at the end of the year then we’ll have effectively busted our humps for reduced wages while we could have been out looking for other jobs. Of course I’m sure they figured that out too.

I would understand the cuts, except my collections last year were > $100k more than my total pay, not including subsidies. Where did all that go? Apparently not a rainy day fund.
 
ambiturner said:
W2 academics - no cuts announced yet but I wish they’d just get it over with. If they announce them all at the end of the year then we’ll have effectively busted our humps for reduced wages while we could have been out looking for other jobs. Of course I’m sure they figured that out too.
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I’m confused. Don’t you get paid biweekly or monthly? Just check your pay stub. If it’s the same you didn’t get cut.
 
ambiturner said:
I would understand the cuts, except my collections last year were > $100k more than my total pay, not including subsidies. Where did all that go? Apparently not a rainy day fund.
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You’re academics. A positive way to look at your productivity is it helps support your colleagues that work in areas that generate a lot less in terms of collections (trauma, high risk OB, nights). It also probably helps pay any call incentives

A more negative view - it helps pay for your departmental leadership, or it goes to the college to make up for financial shortfalls of other departments (namely Medicine).
 
AdmiralChz said:
You’re academics. A positive way to look at your productivity is it helps support your colleagues that work in areas that generate a lot less in terms of collections (trauma, high risk OB, nights). It also probably helps pay any call incentives

A more negative view - it helps pay for your departmental leadership, or it goes to the college to make up for financial shortfalls of other departments (namely Medicine).
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if you are working in the OR in academics, you are supplementing the pay of people that either don't work as hard as you do or work in areas that are not reimbursed very well. There is no rainy day fund they are saving up for you.
 
Mman said:
if you are working in the OR in academics, you are supplementing the pay of people that either don't work as hard as you do or work in areas that are not reimbursed very well. There is no rainy day fund they are saving up for you.
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The payer mix in academics is so crappy it's a wonder anyone generates enough revenue to cover their expenses.
 
ambiturner said:
W2 academics - no cuts announced yet but I wish they’d just get it over with. If they announce them all at the end of the year then we’ll have effectively busted our humps for reduced wages while we could have been out looking for other jobs. Of course I’m sure they figured that out too.

I would understand the cuts, except my collections last year were > $100k more than my total pay, not including subsidies. Where did all that go? Apparently not a rainy day fund.
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You know where it went, overhead, benefits, everyone’s academic time, research/grant seed money, the chairman’s bloated salary, etc. There probably is a rainy day fund, but likely not enough to cover your losses for 8-12 weeks of limited work and the department won’t want to empty it on lost wages. We have a backlog of over 3000 cases. That’s big money that didn’t come in over the last couple of months. And while we are increasing our cases now, we are not even at 50% of normal volume yet, so the backlog is still growing.
 
Arch Guillotti said:
The payer mix in academics is so crappy it's a wonder anyone generates enough revenue to cover their expenses.
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not always. That's more a function of location. The hospital I did my residency at has a much better payer mix than the hospital I work at now. It just depends on where the people with jobs/insurance in an area are going for their care.
 
pgg said:
But ... but ... I was told repeatedly that fellows and residents cost the institution lots and lots of money!

Are ... are you saying they lied to me?
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Perhaps they were honestly mistaken.


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Mman said:
if you are working in the OR in academics, you are supplementing the pay of people that either don't work as hard as you do or work in areas that are not reimbursed very well. There is no rainy day fund they are saving up for you.
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Eh. Our hospital had a pretty good cash reserve. We’re doing single digit pay cuts for MDs and using reserves to float decreased cash flow.
 
Arch Guillotti said:
eh, wasn’t the case where I did my residency.
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Inner city hospital or rural economically depressed area or not enough residents? Unknown.jpeg
 
AMC-ish employee. W2.

6 weeks of 50% hours and 50% pay. Lots of folks took voluntary furlough.

Now we’re back 100% working but only 70% pay. It will be paid back to us once AR come in and we’re tracking this “banked” pay. Hopefully no more than a month.

Same for CRNAs. We’re losing lots of them because of this and how it was communicated from our company.

I’m fully expecting to not receive any 401k contributions this year.
 
Shimmy8 said:
AMC-ish employee. W2.

6 weeks of 50% hours and 50% pay. Lots of folks took voluntary furlough.

Now we’re back 100% working but only 70% pay. It will be paid back to us once AR come in and we’re tracking this “banked” pay. Hopefully no more than a month.

Same for CRNAs. We’re losing lots of them because of this and how it was communicated from our company.

I’m fully expecting to not receive any 401k contributions this year.
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That’s a big hit.
 
The profit margins are so high for almost any practice in anesthesia with at least 30% private insurance.
MirrorTodd said:
Can't remember where I heard this, but I remember hearing that academic hospitals were supposed to be able to function without residents...like we really are just a supplement but primary focus is learning. Obviously not true.
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Maybe 20 years ago that was true. My True academic university owned training hospital had all MDs. No crna.

Attendings Probably did their own cases 10-15% of the time. This was true academic facility. Not one of those fake community affiliated place.

how many true academic facility do attendings even do 2% of their Own cases? Probably close to zero these days.
 
Shimmy8 said:
I’m in a highly desirable city. Academics and other pp groups and CRNA only shops currently hiring CRNAs.
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Same here. Desirable city. Good money to be made. Competition between area hospitals. Everyone wants more CRNAs. Maybe not today, but next month, 6 months, next year.
Everyone is expanding services.
We need to hire a bunch. It never ends.
 
aneftp said:
The profit margins are so high for almost any practice in anesthesia with at least 30% private insurance.

Maybe 20 years ago that was true. My True academic university owned training hospital had all MDs. No crna.

Attendings Probably did their own cases 10-15% of the time. This was true academic facility. Not one of those fake community affiliated place.

how many true academic facility do attendings even do 2% of their Own cases? Probably close to zero these days.
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You got it backwards. 20 years ago it was unheard of an attending working alone. Nowadays over 15% work alone at all places I’m aware of. There are just more cases than residents can cover, and CRNAs no longer make economic sense.
 
urge said:
You got it backwards. 20 years ago it was unheard of an attending working alone. Nowadays over 15% work alone at all places I’m aware of. There are just more cases than residents can cover, and CRNAs no longer make economic sense.
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Today I did my first solo case in about 22 months. It was soo nice. Cold as hell, but soo nice. Supervising nurses sucks balls.
 
aneftp said:
Attendings Probably did their own cases 10-15% of the time. This was true academic facility. Not one of those fake community affiliated place.

how many true academic facility do attendings even do 2% of their Own cases? Probably close to zero these days.
Click to expand...

I'm at a major academic medical center in the NYC area. I do my own cases about 1-2 days/week (and I generally do like doing my own cases). Obviously not representative of all academic centers, but I just wanted to point out that there are some jobs out there like that.
 
urge said:
You got it backwards. 20 years ago it was unheard of an attending working alone. Nowadays over 15% work alone at all places I’m aware of. There are just more cases than residents can cover, and CRNAs no longer make economic sense.
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Must be regional. In the south and Midwest academics. It’s 99% supervision (cough cough medical direction).

so northeast and west May still be MD solo attending these days.
 
kidthor said:
What other jobs? It seems jobs are tight right now? Most places academic I know are on a hiring freeze.
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Many places have a formal freeze but if you have a skill set they need, or a budgeted spot to fill bc someone left, you can find a new job. Definitely playing with fire though bc who knows what happens before you start, or if you’ll just be walking into a new round of cuts.
 
I think my attendings do their own cases once a year... maybe. Some wouldn't know where to find half the supplies.
urge said:
You got it backwards. 20 years ago it was unheard of an attending working alone. Nowadays over 15% work alone at all places I’m aware of. There are just more cases than residents can cover, and CRNAs no longer make economic sense.
Click to expand...
 
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