Christmas gifts

[CoolWhipp]

I work at a large hospital where my medical director is asking us to pitch in for a christmas gift for our er department assistant. Hes asking for 100-300$. AITAH for thinking why is it on the responsibilities of another employee to pitch in for this kind of christmas bonus?

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[Apollyon]

What in the AF does the med director want to get as a gift for that kind of money? Rolex, Tiffany bracelet, Cartier ring, trip to Tahiti?

 

[BoardingDoc]

I work at a large hospital where my medical director is asking us to pitch in for a christmas gift for our er department assistant. Hes asking for 100-300$. AITAH for thinking why is it on the responsibilities of another employee to pitch in for this kind of christmas bonus?

What is an ER department assistant?

 

[Groove]

I'd say "no thanks" and think nothing more about it. I don't know what an "ER dept assistant" is though. If it's someone that's fetching my lunch and massaging my shoulders in between cases then I might be thinking about giving $20-$40 but we've never had one of those. It would have to be really good shoulder rubs though.

If it's your unit secretary who's kid just got diagnosed with leukemia then yeah...I'm probably giving the $100 bucks..maybe $300. Not enough details though.

 

[emergentmd]

This is crap. I have been medical director for the past 10+ years in different departments. When something like a sick employee, sudden death, or something tragic; I just send a message to the group about this and if they wanted to donate then it would be voluntary and anonymous.

What is with this shakedown?

 

[WhatJobDoIPick]

Reminds me of a place I used to work 2-3 shifts a month as a PRN.

They would shake down the attendings (Including PRN) to fund the department holiday party - to pay for the nurses, techs and residents. I was like wut lol. Why isn't this coming out of the department budget?

 

[RustedFox]

You guys have "department assistants"??

 

[southerndoc]

This is crap. I have been medical director for the past 10+ years in different departments. When something like a sick employee, sudden death, or something tragic; I just send a message to the group about this and if they wanted to donate then it would be voluntary and anonymous.

What is with this shakedown?

One of our docs arranges for a fund. Every year we donate and he uses the money to pay for various things (flowers, food, etc. for deaths, emergencies, etc.). He always sends out how much was spent for what cause when he spends it.

 

[AlmostAnMD]

You guys have "department assistants"??

The classier word is "escort" pls

 

[JacobMcCandles]

Who employs you? Who employs the assistant? The assistant’s employer should be responsible for any gifts or bonuses.

 

[EctopicFetus]

Con by your CMG overlord.

 

[dchristismi]

Way back when I had a really solid, awesome semi-academic group (it was a community rotation site for a residency), we had a secretary and 2 of our own coders. We did this for them, but we were also a small, tight knit bunch. And this was, ahem, back in the day when we also made bank and we weren't run by a CMG. And we always gave them cash. But this was like 2010 - not now. Very different times.

 

[Birdstrike]

I voluntarily contributed $150 to an office Christmas party and gave my personal nurse a $500 Christmas bonus, out of my own pocket. It was money well spent to support a team I need to support me. And I probably would be okay with something similar to benefit nurses and support staff working by my side in the trenches of the ED. But I sure as hell wouldn’t be happy about it going to some committee-jockey. Unless, of course, a gun was put to my head and I had to do it to keep my job. Then I would be happy about it.

 

[WhatJobDoIPick]

This thread is enigmatic of EM in 2024. Consistent year on year pay cuts but everyone still with their hand out.

 

[EctopicFetus]

I think if you are a private group you need to support your employees. We are very lean but our non clinical admin gets well taken care of.. but as far as nurses (that we dont employ) no bonuses from us.. we do buy food etc on shift and support nurses week/ems week etc.

 

[EctopicFetus]

Do you guys throw a holiday party funded by your group’s funds? I think that’s a requirement from the hospital for our group. It’s absolute BS. The party costs 5-10k at least and almost none of the doctors ever show up other than the medical director. It’s mostly just the midlevels/nurses/techs.

LOL.. no hospital has a Xmas party.. we are invited.. we def dont pay..

 

[Janders]

Do you guys throw a holiday party funded by your group’s funds? I think that’s a requirement from the hospital for our group. It’s absolute BS. The party costs 5-10k at least and almost none of the doctors ever show up other than the medical director. It’s mostly just the midlevels/nurses/techs.

We used to do an annual holiday party (in February) before covid times, and the docs paid and invited the nurses and techs. ED only thing. It was fun, and we were a tight knit group.

We did the first “after times” party last week, in the same vein. Local sports bar type place. Buffet of fried and Italian food, big space. We had about 75 people come, doc nurse pa tech uco and a few reg clerks and phlebo.

When we split the cost of the food and venue per doc it’ll be about $200 each, but we will take it pretax so… your donation gets a discount! We don’t pay for booze like that, but I might have funded the first round.

Anyway, even if you want to be Scrooge-hearted about such things, I PROMISE the return on investment regarding morale and productivity is very good for such an event.

 

[Janders]

We used to do an annual holiday party (in February) before covid times, and the docs paid and invited the nurses and techs. ED only thing. It was fun, and we were a tight knit group.

We did the first “after times” party last week, in the same vein. Local sports bar type place. Buffet of fried and Italian food, big space. We had about 75 people come, doc nurse pa tech uco and a few reg clerks and phlebo.

When we split the cost of the food and venue per doc it’ll be about $200 each, but we will take it pretax so… your donation gets a discount! We don’t pay for booze like that, but I might have funded the first round.

Anyway, even if you want to be Scrooge-hearted about such things, I PROMISE the return on investment regarding morale and productivity is very good for such an event.

Oh and we also got a stack of delivery for the people stuck working, which was a few hundred dollars… can’t send pizza. But I actually had a hospital board member volunteer to pay for most of that.

 

[EctopicFetus]

Oh and we also got a stack of delivery for the people stuck working, which was a few hundred dollars… can’t send pizza. But I actually had a hospital board member volunteer to pay for most of that.

It’s not about that. We do a lot of donations for hospital and staff. But mandating that we docs pay for something is not cool. I do agree the ROI is significant..

 

[Janders]

It’s not about that. We do a lot of donations for hospital and staff. But mandating that we docs pay for something is not cool. I do agree the ROI is significant..

My perspective is a little different as we aren’t hourly employees, we’re still functionally eat-what-we-kill and all extra cash flow is distributed out to the docs. And our “overhead” tax (for admin stuff) is very very low.

But that does mean that literally every dollar we spend (a bonus for the PAs, a donation to the hospital fund, whatever) is literally out of the pocket of the docs.

It’s not like a corporate mega group where they’ve already taxed you and could use some corporate slush money for this.

Anyway, it’s much easier to spend $2500 on a party and divide the cost evenly by throwing it on the quarterly balance sheet than asking each doc to pony up $250 in post tax money to my Venmo. This is the will of the majority, and I admit perhaps 1-2 people don’t want their money spent.

Granted this stuff represents about 1/20 of one percent of our annual gross revenue so I have spent about that much thought on it 😆

If we’re talking thousands per doc, it’s a more significant discussion… or an employee set up where the doc doesn’t see the benefit of increased revenue.

 

[TooMuchResearch]

We used to do an annual holiday party (in February) before covid times, and the docs paid and invited the nurses and techs. ED only thing. It was fun, and we were a tight knit group.

We did the first “after times” party last week, in the same vein. Local sports bar type place. Buffet of fried and Italian food, big space. We had about 75 people come, doc nurse pa tech uco and a few reg clerks and phlebo.

When we split the cost of the food and venue per doc it’ll be about $200 each, but we will take it pretax so… your donation gets a discount! We don’t pay for booze like that, but I might have funded the first round.

Anyway, even if you want to be Scrooge-hearted about such things, I PROMISE the return on investment regarding morale and productivity is very good for such an event.

Yeah, we have some kind of group budget for stuff like this.

 

[emergentmd]

Giving staff, nurses, even admin gifts is great if you have a connection/good friends. But I surely am not going to give money to someone I rarely ever talk to just b/c the FMD asked me to. Now if they were sick and had some bad lucks, I am all in giving people $$ who I never met.

But I want to give b/c I want to and not feel forced.

 

[EctopicFetus]

My perspective is a little different as we aren’t hourly employees, we’re still functionally eat-what-we-kill and all extra cash flow is distributed out to the docs. And our “overhead” tax (for admin stuff) is very very low.

But that does mean that literally every dollar we spend (a bonus for the PAs, a donation to the hospital fund, whatever) is literally out of the pocket of the docs.

It’s not like a corporate mega group where they’ve already taxed you and could use some corporate slush money for this.

Anyway, it’s much easier to spend $2500 on a party and divide the cost evenly by throwing it on the quarterly balance sheet than asking each doc to pony up $250 in post tax money to my Venmo. This is the will of the majority, and I admit perhaps 1-2 people don’t want their money spent.

Granted this stuff represents about 1/20 of one percent of our annual gross revenue so I have spent about that much thought on it 😆

If we’re talking thousands per doc, it’s a more significant discussion… or an employee set up where the doc doesn’t see the benefit of increased revenue.

Agreed.. im an eat what you kill model and every penny is paid to the docs. So this money comes from the individual docs.. That being said my only concern is it being mandated by the hospital. Also agreed re CMgs.. it’s just the cost of doing business for them.