Anyone know where I can get a fair market value analysis for ophthalmology on call pay?

[4ophtho]

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The post says it all. Any help would be needed. Need some hard facts to renegotiate hospital on call pay.

 

[ball123]

Great post. Would be interested to know as well.

 

[dantt]

Can you describe what your call responsibilities are?
ER? Inpatient? Trauma? # of facilities? Size of hospital? Other docs covering practice? Necessity of hospital privileges? Ability/requirement to operate there?

 

[4ophtho]

ER - Level 1 trauma center
Inpatient consults - Yes
Trauma - Plenty
Size of hospital - large quatenary referral center with extensive network of outlying hospitals and freestanding urgent care centers
Other docs covering practice - 10-12 ophthalmologists, several aged out of taking call
Frequency of call - 1 week at a time every 6-8 weeeks
Residency support - none
Reimbursement - $700/day

 

[wysdoc]

ER - Level 1 trauma center
Inpatient consults - Yes
Trauma - Plenty
Size of hospital - large quatenary referral center with extensive network of outlying hospitals and freestanding urgent care centers
Other docs covering practice - 10-12 ophthalmologists, several aged out of taking call
Frequency of call - 1 week at a time every 6-8 weeeks
Residency support - none
Reimbursement - $700/day

That is great reimbursement for eye call, I think. I can PM you a story if you are open to PMs.

 

[4ophtho]

That is great reimbursement for eye call, I think. I can PM you a story if you are open to PMs.

Go ahead and PM me.
We actually are getting paid about 30% LESS than other ophthalmologists in our city who take call at less busy hospitals, hence the inquiry
For the amount of work we do, this is NOT great reimbursement

 

[dantt]

Go ahead and PM me.
We actually are getting paid about 30% LESS than other ophthalmologists in our city who take call at less busy hospitals, hence the inquiry
For the amount of work we do, this is NOT great reimbursement

Sounds like you should ask for 30% more.

 

[4ophtho]

Sounds like you should ask for 30% more.

Not really a helpful answer. I am aware of ophthalmologists in comparable situations being paid in excess of $1000/day for trauma call, which is on the low end of trauma call for a surgical specialist.

 

[dantt]

Not really a helpful answer. I am aware of ophthalmologists in comparable situations being paid in excess of $1000/day for trauma call, which is on the low end of trauma call for a surgical specialist.

We are paid in excess of $1000/day to cover TWO level 1 trauma centers in addition to inpatient call at multiple hospitals.

 

[Lazyeye9]

$1000 a day should be minimum. Don’t take anything less. I told the hospitals to pay me as much as ortho, they said no, so I said no.

 

[LightBox]

Doesnt sound like it is worth the hassle to take hospital call. Can you get out of it? All of those patients are high liability cases.

 

[OphthoApplicant04]

A friend accepted a job in a major coastal city with 750/day for call. It's a busy community hospital but is near an academic trauma center, so most hot messes tend to go there.

My understanding was we have terrible leverage because so many ASCs require you to have admitting privileges somewhere. Has this been peoples' experience?

 

[airplanes]

ER - Level 1 trauma center
Inpatient consults - Yes
Trauma - Plenty
Size of hospital - large quatenary referral center with extensive network of outlying hospitals and freestanding urgent care centers
Other docs covering practice - 10-12 ophthalmologists, several aged out of taking call
Frequency of call - 1 week at a time every 6-8 weeeks
Residency support - none
Reimbursement - $700/day

So we're talking about ~40k pre-tax for ~2 months of call which includes trauma and inpatient consults. Surely, the time and effort is not worthwhile even if you take in to account any referrals the hospital throws your way. Good luck actually collecting from ER trauma patients as well. Any way to get out of it?

 

[schistosomiasis]

The numbers sound about right but it also depends on how many people are willing to take call (supply and demand), how busy it is, level 1 vs 2 trauma center.

Depending on your area you will probably be out of network for insurance for some if not many insurances the patients are on (Medicaid, HMO) do negotiate that you’ll get the allowed amount for say Medicare for any fee for services performed especially surgeries. Same for cash pay patients, make sure you don’t go hone empty handed for each open globe or consult you perform, this should be on top of call stipend.

I agree you won’t build a practice by taking call but you are performing a good service, some people enjoy it, I don’t. Administrators get paid a ton for “organizing” a trauma hospital but we do the heavy lifting, thus we should be compensated fairly.