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I'm emergency med btw. Feel free to share advice/stories/cautionary tales
If I'm active duty and want to moonlight, do I have to do it while on leave? Or can I just schedule shifts during my 'off' days
- Thread starter Beneath the marquee
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Ask your current command, not the internet. 🙂
Generally speaking, either is fine - with some caveats. Typically my experience at two different Navy commands was that moonlighting on liberty was OK, provided total hours per week was under 16 and there was an 8 hour rest period prior to any Navy shift. There was WIDE variability in the formal monitoring of ODE and enforcement of the rules.
I've seen people get away with crazy stuff in violation of the rules, and I've heard of people getting absolutely hammered for technical rule violations that weren't even remotely their fault.
There was some subjectivity to whether the "16 h/w" meant hours in the hospital or pager call from home also.
You must be within the command's liberty radius, of course. If air travel is involved, must be on leave, regardless of distance. This is true for anything you do on liberty obviously, but for non-obvious reasons I knew some people who thought that non-ODE rule could be broken if they were doing ODE.
While on leave, knock yourself out and burn that candle hard at both ends - no one cares.
Waivers to the rules can be requested and are sometimes even granted.
Anyway - all of this will be crystal clear when you request and receive permission to engage in ODE at your command. Ask them. You can do it under the radar without telling anyone, and some people do, but (a) medicine is a small world and word WILL get back to the command, and (b) save yourself the trouble and just do the paperwork and get permission.
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If you are Army MEDCOM used to have a policy that is sometimes still referenced but now for everyone DHA will become the policy owner, although they have not published anything yet. You need to get formal approval thru your command. There is some grey area if you can do night/weekends/holidays or have to be formally on leave status and it is very abused. You don't want to use leave you don't have to but you definitely don't want to be caught out - you'll burn yourself and likely screw over your colleagues
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This is the latest Army pub I could find, lacking CAC access.
USAF version from 59th Medical Wing in San Antonio. Presumably other USAF units have similar procedures.
NAVMEDCEN Portsmouth acknowledgment page; provides a quick overview of procedures.
I retired in 2016, and if memory serves there were picky rules about not being able to bill Tricare patients for my professional services when moonlighting in the private sector. I think.
USAF version from 59th Medical Wing in San Antonio. Presumably other USAF units have similar procedures.
NAVMEDCEN Portsmouth acknowledgment page; provides a quick overview of procedures.
I retired in 2016, and if memory serves there were picky rules about not being able to bill Tricare patients for my professional services when moonlighting in the private sector. I think.
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