I've just been told and found out for myself that one of the biggest hospital systems in my state offers pensions (!!). I know who I'll be applying for next.
How much are hospital pharmacists making?
- Thread starter Son_Goku
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In California, there are a good # of employers that offer pensions still. Problem is...if that entity goes bankrupt, you're at the whim of a bankruptcy judge who has the right to alter the contracts in court. Usually benefits are ironclad, but you can't predict 20-30 years if you're early in your career.
In CA, the entities that have pensions are the State (so corrections, University of California, etc...), City of San Francisco (SFGH, Laguna Honda, etc...), and Kaiser. There are others too that I can't think of right now.
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When considering that, look into how much of your own money you have to contribute into the pension. For example, new federal employees must contribute 4.4% of their salaries to their pension. Still not a bad return, but not as great as it sounds.
I make 68/hr at my retail job. At my per diem hospital job I make 46/hr.
Not sure what the rate difference would be for FT hospital vs per diem but I've been told per diem rate is higher because they don't have to pay benefits. Who knows if it's true.
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Not sure what the rate difference would be for FT hospital vs per diem but I've been told per diem rate is higher because they don't have to pay benefits. Who knows if it's true.
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That is the lowest per diem rate I've ever seen! Usually it's at least $50/hr. What part of the country?
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Honestly, the pay is identical. My best friend is making ~ $70/hr at hospital, and he's got much better benefits than I do. I make the same retail plus a potential bonus as I'm pic. Since I work two jobs though, I can tell you for a fact that retail is MUCH more exhausting.
I've got to get out to California one of these days. My full-time job (hospital informatics) pays a little over $50/hr, and my PRN hospital job is at $60. I know the taxes and housing is higher in California, but at least my pre-tax retirement savings would go up dramatically.
Northeast. This was a year ago. Started at 45 and got bumped to 46 after a year.
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I guess that makes sense as the NE is by far the most saturated area of the country. Typically you would expect a per diem job to pay way more than full-time.
I'd hate to be accused of telling lies about our profession, but I'm afraid this will be the future for everyone. Check out the Pharmacy manpower project if you don't believe me. The NE USA is the first region to experience true saturation, and they are paying a non-benefit position a ridiculous wage. Hell, I am in a low paying part of the country and still make $60/hr at my PRN job.
You can look at the 10 year trend on pharmacymanpower.com and see that the rest of the country is headed towards true saturation. Things are going to get bad.
Right I was offered a full time position at the place and turned it down because the per diem rate was slightly higher than the full time rate would have been and I couldn't justify the 40k a year salary difference combined with a longer commute. As much as I hate retail.
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Philadelphia Area
Starting 50+
Pool Rate 55+
Starting 50+
Pool Rate 55+
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I work in a hospital in NJ and make ~90,000 a year pretax vs CVS pays ~120,000 a year
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That pretty much sums up NJ.
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From what I understand, California is the only state where many hospital pharmacists make as much or more than a lot of retail positions (outside of DOP). Anywhere else I know, a retail pharmacist will generally make more/hr. For example, in Texas most people I know in hospital make right around 100-105k for hosp staffing (a bit more with years exp), and some of the clinical specialists make in the 110-120k range. Most of my friends fresh out of pharmacy school this year are averaging 120k/year offers for retail starting out, with many getting into the upper 120s-low 130s. Do what you like, because the pay is good regardless, but yes hospital overall still usually pays less. If you want the big bucks in clinical, go to Cali but outside the really expensive cities.
I work at Kaiser outpatient in San Diego, CA and right now the pharmacists start out at $78/hr, they make a bit more if they're per diem. All the pharmacists make around the same amount of money regardless if they just graduated or have years of experience.
For the last few weeks (possibly for longer than a month), a recruiter has had a position posted in my city (midsize GA city) for a pharmacist to work for a local hospital during the 2:30 PM - 11:30 PM shift. It doesn't say what the base salary is, but they're offering $8/hr shift differential for weekdays, and $16/hr shift differential for weekends. Does this sound like a standard amount of shift dif. to offer for this kind of shift?
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That's a great differential. I get $4.70/HR 7 days a week for a similar shift. It's also worth checking out if the differential applies to the entire shift or just after a certain time.
I've found shift differentials to be incredibly variable. I worked at one hospital where weekday evening was 18%, weekend dat was 12%, and weekend evening was 24%
That added up pretty quickly!
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Yeah, if I was graduating now and was able to apply for the job (and actually got hired), I would definitely try to work as many weekend shifts as possible so I could earn the $16/hr shift differential. Then again, maybe the shift differential is really high because the base salary sucks....
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damn my shift differential is like $1.45 an hour for evening sbifts and $1.55 per hr for weekend shifts
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At my per diem job it's only $1 or $2/HR.
It's super variable.
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$2.25 for evenings, no weekend diff here
My primary job only does an evening diff as well.
The $4.70/HR adds up, I work 90% evenings and it comes out to be something like $8K/yr in differential pay.
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I think the hospitals in my area still pay really good shift dif. rates because the area is consistently ranked as one of the worst places to live on the basis of crime, standard of living, quality of amenities/shops/restaurants, etc. However, a pharmacy school located 1.5 hours away that matriculated its first class in 2012 will be graduating that first class this month (maybe they already graduated), so the job market is probably going to get slammed here.
My last job paid roughly $3/hr extra on evenings, and $5/hr on weekends... I think. I was never too sure. My current PRN job pays a 10% differential on weekends, which seems pretty standard.
I'm just keeping my eye on the prize. My two year plan is to move to California and work for Kaiser.
I'm just keeping my eye on the prize. My two year plan is to move to California and work for Kaiser.
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Damn you're gettin worked
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The VA is nice, 10% for evening and another 15% for weekends. Makes weekend evenings a little more bearable to get 25%. Base salary is currently $120,000 however this is highly dependent on locality and grade/step.
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lol i know. but in the end, it comes out to like 130K per year (base salary pay) so that's not too shabby I suppose and then I usually pickup some OT here and there plus holiday pay of 3-4K.
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yeah, i work for a small community hospital so that's prob why. but the base salary is already $60/hr so it's not too too bad.
Wow! That is pretty high. How do you compare that salary to the East coast with your high cost of living out there? And what do you get in terms of seniority for those that have been there for a while?
It's true San Diego is very expensive, but I want to say most, if not all, of the pharmacists live very comfortably and can afford to live in the area on their salary. The benefits are also amazing - they get 5 weeks of paid vacation every year, plus health insurance, 401k match, double time and a half if you work holidays, etc. Kaiser is also a non-profit organization, so it qualifies for loan forgiveness after 10 years. In terms of seniority, I think it only affects the amount of hours given -- so people with more seniority will obviously get more hours. However, I work in a 24 hours pharmacy so everyone rotates shifts. So even if you have a lot of seniority, you're not entitled to a nice Monday through Friday 8-5pm job, everyone rotates through the late shifts and weekends. We do, however, have two graveyard pharmacists so the pharmacists do not need to rotate those shifts. Those with more seniority are just entitled to more hours. But for the most part, we're pretty busy so everyone gets at least 32 to 40 hours a week.
Seniority plays a bigger role if you're trying to switch locations. Kaiser is really big on internal hiring and lets just say a pharmacist position opens at a nice MOB which is only open during the day M-F with little volume.. of course many people would apply to that position! So we have all of these pharmacists apply.. the person with the most seniority will be offered the position. If they turn it down, they just go down the list based off who's been there the longest.
