Are people hiring now?

[Attending1985]

---

Members do not see this ad.

I posted earlier that my salary was cut 20%. Something happened with my husbands job who works for the same organization that has me beyond pissed. So much so that I’m wanting to leave. Do you think you could even get hired right now? I talked to a friend who works at the va and she’s going to talk to her medical director. There is an understaffed Cmhc in my area too. Don’t really want to go there though.

 

[wolfvgang22]

Yes. Psychiatry is less affected because we can telework a lot. Psychiatry demand is increasing, not decreasing, at least in my region.

The VA in particular is hiring more than ever nationwide. The stability of working for the VA has really been highlighted in my city in the last month, even in mental health. Lots of VA telepsych available, too, particularly at my VA. It makes the bureaucracy somewhat more palatable. No talk of cutting pay or benefits.

 

[thepoopologist]

I would say once you start looking you'll find out if people are hiring or not. If my pay was cut by 20% I'd start looking regardless.

I'm a government employee as well and there's no pressure to create profit.

 

[Mass Effect]

Judging by my inbox, YES, plenty of places are hiring.

 

[randomdoc1]

I’m hiring. My pay rate puts the VA to shame.

 

[Attending1985]

I’m gonna look into the va and hope they’re hiring. I’m sick of the pressure of production and just want to be salaried. Do you think the va would let me do psychotherapy?

 

[randomdoc1]

I’m gonna look into the va and hope they’re hiring. I’m sick of the pressure of production and just want to be salaried. Do you think the va would let me do psychotherapy?

the VA I worked at did. But they will still pressure you to perform. They look at rvus and will get on your case if they don’t like it. So per unit of time of work, I consider them the lowest paying employers, and they are. Even with benefits included. They also like to assign you additional admin duties with no pay raise or extra time to get it done. I actually worked more at the VA than my private practice. And was paid way less.

 

[Attending1985]

the VA I worked at did. But they will still pressure you to perform. They look at rvus and will get on your case if they don’t like it. So per unit of time of work, I consider them the lowest paying employers, and they are. Even with benefits included. They also like to assign you additional admin duties with no pay raise or extra time to get it done. I actually worked more at the VA than my private practice. And was paid way less.

What is their motivation to pressure rvus?

 

[randomdoc1]

What is their motivation to pressure rvus?

I'm assuming it is the same motivation as any practice be it private, part of a hospital system or government. This is just my theory, so if I'm wrong, correct me. I believe the VA does bill insurance but of course they have other sources of income too. But production by the healthcare providers provides revenue for the VA to perhaps cover expenses, grow, etc. Also, showing that their services are being utilized, probably helps them make the argument that they need to keep their psychiatrists hired...and paid...and maybe get paid better if they are found to be good producers. At least for other ways the VA gets their funding, I heard that if the money is not spent, the budget gets cut in the future due to the appearance that the need for that funding isn't present. So in other words, in general if there seems to be less utility of services I'm guessing there can theoretically threat of loss of more funding and support for the department in question?

Also, if someone is a not a big producer, I don't think people get fired or disciplined per se. It looks like that's very hard to happen at the VA. My colleague generally had a high no show rate. So they just moved him to the DOM residential program and made sure that he produced at a good rate since it's more like an IOP/residential model.

 

[ksharp33]

Yes, demand continues to rise. Some of my friends in other specialties have had their hours cut, psych however continues to be in high demand.

 

[splik]

Places are still hiring but it depends on how critical the need is and where the job is. We have a hiring freeze. However we are still interviewing for an important leadership position via video. I still get unsolicited emails. In general it’s not a good time to be jumping ship. However it is always a good idea to keep looking for new opportunities. Just knowing you have options can make you feel a lot better. Feeling trapped in a job is harder to bear.

 

[TexasPhysician]

Yes, demand continues to rise. Some of my friends in other specialties have had their hours cut, psych however continues to be in high demand.

I have multiple friends getting pay cuts right now. Many patients aren’t excited about tele. Hospitals are struggling to stay open and terminating lots of docs, including psych. Many hiring freezes. Places with positions are fewer so rates are lower. This instant is not a good time to look.

That said, this won’t last long. The pandemic is traumatizing and isolation is terrible. Psych will rebound faster than others.

 

[randomdoc1]

I have multiple friends getting pay cuts right now. Many patients aren’t excited about tele. Hospitals are struggling to stay open and terminating lots of docs, including psych. Many hiring freezes. Places with positions are fewer so rates are lower. This instant is not a good time to look.

That said, this won’t last long. The pandemic is traumatizing and isolation is terrible. Psych will rebound faster than others.

*randomdoc1 starts eagerly drafting contracts and new job listings...*

 

[Attending1985]

I’ve got some interest from the va. Have worked there is residency. It seemed fairly low stress with lots of resources available. Any input from those who work there?

 

[finalpsychyear]

I’ve got some interest from the va. Have worked there is residency. It seemed fairly low stress with lots of resources available. Any input from those who work there?

I was considering it when i started while i was planning to build a PP on the side. It is easy and chill but the pay is always on the lower end. It depends sometimes on where you are in your life. If one was at the tail end of the career and wanted 5 years of chill and benefits some of which are lifetime free health insurance i think then maybe. For someone young and ambitious i would only consider it as part of some other endeavor. It might make sense for women who are young and want to do something part time that is chill and relaxing as they have young kids or plan to become pregnant as i recall since great paternal/maternity leave and your job is always secure.

 

[Attending1985]

I was considering it when i started while i was planning to build a PP on the side. It is easy and chill but the pay is always on the lower end. It depends sometimes on where you are in your life. If one was at the tail end of the career and wanted 5 years of chill and benefits some of which are lifetime free health insurance i think then maybe. For someone young and ambitious i would only consider it as part of some other endeavor. It might make sense for women who are young and want to do something part time that is chill and relaxing as they have young kids or plan to become pregnant as i recall since great paternal/maternity leave and your job is always secure.

I’m not totally sure but I think the pay here is pretty good. They were 260 five years ago and someone told me that they’re now 280. I’m in the category of woman with young children looking for something part time and chill. The job I have now is pretty stressful. High acuity spmi patients and also entitled patients demanding benzos. The one perk is no call which I would have to do at the va.

 

[Mass Effect]

I was considering it when i started while i was planning to build a PP on the side. It is easy and chill but the pay is always on the lower end. It depends sometimes on where you are in your life. If one was at the tail end of the career and wanted 5 years of chill and benefits some of which are lifetime free health insurance i think then maybe. For someone young and ambitious i would only consider it as part of some other endeavor. It might make sense for women who are young and want to do something part time that is chill and relaxing as they have young kids or plan to become pregnant as i recall since great paternal/maternity leave and your job is always secure.

Is this location specific? I was offered a VA job with start time 7 am and one of the other psychiatrists said she typically left around 5:30 or 6. That didn't seem all that chill to me but that could have been that particular VA. How long do you have to work there to get free lifetime healthcare?

 

[randomdoc1]

PP can easily having you bringing home $186-211 an hour.

 

[finalpsychyear]

PP can easily having you bringing home $186-211 an hour.

if your hired by someone in PP who is paying you hourly yes... if your self employed and busy well you can be hiring someone and paying those rates so i'll leave it at that.

 

[dl2dp2]

People are definitely hiring. Some states have hiring freezes but state/govt psych jobs are often exempt from the hiring freeze because it's *that* hard to recruit a psychiatrist, especially at a state hospital/prison, etc. Staff level for these facilities are very often very tenuous before geriatric MDs waiting for pension clock starting calling out sick.

Pay cuts are not uncommon at facilities jobs (know several friends who work for large non-profits who have uniform 20% cut throughout staffing), but psych productivity rvus are not decreasing, and insurance is starting to reimburse tele visits at similar rates.

PP is also doing well overall so far as I know most of my colleagues are successful in fully transitioning to all tele. The only people who are hurting are people who made a lot of investment into TMS etc.

This is a very unique job in medicine. I think there's still a lot of value in the IN office therapy hour in a traditional sense and will carry cachet and luxury with it into the future, but a lot of jobs in psych will eventually transition into all telemedicine, especially in hard to access areas, including emergency room/inpatient coverage. As is, it's not difficult to get a tele job covering out of way CMHCs, they just don't pay well. Facilities will soon realize that they don't need middlemen to recruit people because the technology component is trivial, and it's way easier to recruit if you say from the get-go it's full-time tele.

 

[notdeadyet]

I’ve got some interest from the va. Have worked there is residency. It seemed fairly low stress with lots of resources available. Any input from those who work there?

It's EXTREMELY hard to generalize about the VA. You can generalize some pros (less emphasis on production quotas, stability, etc.) and cons (less room for negotiation, federal employees who are almost impossible to fire, government culture), but for the most part "if you've seen 1 VA, you've seen 1 VA."

I work at a VA that has very high amounts of research funding and a tight interaction with our university. Lots of teaching with students, residents, fellows. Very nimble and open to new programs and process. Good housing and social services resources. But I've been to VAs that were absolutely horrible.

I wouldn't take to heart too many people's description of working at their particular VA. You need to talk to people at the VA you're looking to get hired at.

 

[dl2dp2]

I work at a VA that has very high amounts of research funding and a tight interaction with our university. Lots of teaching with students, residents, fellows. Very nimble and open to new programs and process. Good housing and social services resources. But I've been to VAs that were absolutely horrible.

Academically oriented VAs are often very high quality because the faculty are also often leaders in certain research areas (PTSD, suicide, addiction, etc) and a lot of these positions are highly coveted because they offer hard money support for researchers.

 

[Attending1985]

It's EXTREMELY hard to generalize about the VA. You can generalize some pros (less emphasis on production quotas, stability, etc.) and cons (less room for negotiation, federal employees who are almost impossible to fire, government culture), but for the most part "if you've seen 1 VA, you've seen 1 VA."

I work at a VA that has very high amounts of research funding and a tight interaction with our university. Lots of teaching with students, residents, fellows. Very nimble and open to new programs and process. Good housing and social services resources. But I've been to VAs that were absolutely horrible.

I wouldn't take to heart too many people's description of working at their particular VA. You need to talk to people at the VA you're looking to get hired at.

Luckily my residency classmate is the inpatient doctor at this va and I worked there is residency. I’d say it’s midway as far as good and bad descriptions. Not some research bastion but affiliated with a university and management is reasonable. She is painting a rosy picture but she’s recruiting me to the call pool so I can imagine there are some things she’s leaving out.

 

[FlowRate]

My upcoming employment is unaffected except they've mildly cut the least-valuable part of our benefits (academic time + stipend) and are not planning on any pay increases this year (if they would have been due.)

 

[J ROD]

The incompetence of the system seems fairly uniform throughout my VA experiences. However, some are better than others. In other words, I could tolerate some VA's. I truly enjoyed working with the veteran population more than any other and plan to return after making more money in private world for maybe a decade or so. For the most part, jobs are good. There has been a slow down I see. But not as bad as others.

 

[comp1]

If you've seen one VA, you have indeed seen one VA. However, there are some generalizations. The pay varies slightly, but it's relatively tightly tied to cost of living in a given area. The benefits are quite uniform nationally. To the best of my knowledge, you need 10 years of federal service for your insurance benefits to continue into retirement (last 5 prior to retirement need to be in federal service) and you need to be at your minimum retirement age, 57 for most of us here. I would say generally the VA has a bit less patient load and a bit less pay than the average employer. What I didn't really appreciate until this pandemic mess is how relatively stable it is compared to the private sector. The VA is not announcing paycuts or layoffs, even if volume is down. There's significant value to that stability.

 

[Attending1985]

Talked to the va and inquired about doing psychotherapy. Was told this was possible but I would need to be trained in to the manualized evidenced based therapies. Looked online and there’s quite a few modalities. Just waiting to see if position is approved. The only thing giving me pause is patient population. Right now my patient population is extremely varied. All ages, backgrounds, pathogologies, ect. I really like working with women. Hopefully the va population doesn’t feel too narrow to find fulfillment.

 

[waterflying]

Talked to the va and inquired about doing psychotherapy. Was told this was possible but I would need to be trained in to the manualized evidenced based therapies. Looked online and there’s quite a few modalities. Just waiting to see if position is approved. The only thing giving me pause is patient population. Right now my patient population is extremely varied. All ages, backgrounds, pathogologies, ect. I really like working with women. Hopefully the va population doesn’t feel too narrow to find fulfillment.

Is this an in person job or telepsych? What kind of benefits do they have? What’s the average day look like in terms of wHat time you start and end the day? How many patients do you see a day and how much time is given per patient?

 

[Attending1985]

Is this an in person job or telepsych? What kind of benefits do they have? What’s the average day look like in terms of wHat time you start and end the day? How many patients do you see a day and how much time is given per patient?

Mix of both. Va benefits. 8-4:30 I believe. For meds only 30 minute follow up and 1 hour intake.

 

[Attending1985]

So I requested the position be changed to a part time FTE. Apparently this has to go through some kind of institutional review process. I was supposed to hear back last week but it's taking longer due to covid I guess. Has anyone gone though this process at the va? It's been two weeks and I still haven't heard anything.

 

[Jules A]

So I requested the position be changed to a part time FTE. Apparently this has to go through some kind of institutional review process. I was supposed to hear back last week but it's taking longer due to covid I guess. Has anyone gone though this process at the va? It's been two weeks and I still haven't heard anything.

As someone pointed out VAs are highly variable but in my experience n=2 there were never flames coming out their tail pipes even when genuine need was clear. I also did not have any success in getting them to approve a 0.5FTE. Good luck though as part time anything is usually tolerable.

 

[Attending1985]

As someone pointed out VAs are highly variable but in my experience n=2 there were never flames coming out their tail pipes even when genuine need was clear. I also did not have any success in getting them to approve a 0.5FTE. Good luck though as part time anything is usually tolerable.

About 4 years ago they approved a .5 for me but I turned it down for my current job. Really hoping it’s approved this time.