Moonlighting offer

[jbomba]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Covering an entire inpatient unit, roughly 30 follow ups total for the weekend + new admissions anywhere from 4-15 a weekend.

I'm a resident, was offered $3,800. Is this so bad I shouldn't take the offer? Middle of the road? I understand it's not good. Appreciate your feedback.

 

[ObsequiousAplomb]

While it sounds unpleasant, it beats what the residents at my program get offered. They cover 2 units at a for profit stand alone psych hospital. 30 follow up patients, 5+ new admissions including all the involuntary documents, 5+ discharges, and 8 hours of home call for $1200 per weekend day.

One of the most important questions is what are they expecting you to do with those 30 patients? Do they expect you to be making changes, adding meds, titrating meds, filling out involuntary documents? Or do they want you to just write a cursory note so they can say they billed something and that they offer full service 7 days a week?

What about with the admissions? Do they want you to call collaterals, order a real workup, make a real formulation? Or do they want you to continue home meds at first and defer the real work for the week day team?

If all they want is cursory work, how comfortable are you seeing 30-40 people, making necessary changes, and documenting all that? Is the $1900 a day worth it to you for all that mental and emotional burden? Even just for the follow ups and ignoring the admissions, that boils down to $63 per encounter. How do you feel knowing you're providing a $63 service in inpatient psychiatry?

 

[Desired Member]

Covering an entire inpatient unit, roughly 30 follow ups total for the weekend + new admissions anywhere from 4-15 a weekend.

I'm a resident, was offered $3,800. Is this so bad I shouldn't take the offer? Middle of the road? I understand it's not good. Appreciate your feedback.

So seeing 15 follow up patients and then do maybe 7 admissions that same day? Doesn't sound safe. Patient care suffers when this kind of stuff happens. It's my opinion that we as doctors need to demand better conditions.

 

[J ROD]

Overall, the pay is low for that amount of work. 5000 would be closer. However, as a resident it sounds great. 15 admissions is a good amount. I would do it for 5 new admissions over weekend and 15 follow ups per day? Maybe see if you can negotiate a flat fee for each admission? That's where you gonna get it the hardest in terms of work and overloaded.

 

[TexasPhysician]

As a resident, this is a fair offer. As a BC psychiatrist, it is not worth my time.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

As a resident, this is a fair offer. As a BC psychiatrist, it is not worth my time.

Yeah I view these extra moonlighting gigs in terms of relative value. As a resident this is a 70%+ bump to your salary for 1 crappy weekend a month (not too hard to manage if you have a chill 3rd-4th year). As an attending, it’s a 15-20% bump for burning a weekend a month on top of a full time job.

 

[Stagg737]

Some of our residents moonlight at the state hospital which sounds very similar to this (I believe closer to 5-10 new patients) and pay is $5k for the weekend. Position you mention doesn’t sounds awful, but does sound low even for residents in my area.

Another way to think of it, if you have to be available the full weekend, you’re getting paid $79 per hour. Again, not awful for a resident, but could certainly do better most places.

 

[comp1]

It's not great. It's also not so absolutely horrible for a resident that you should decline it out of hand. Concur with the others that it needs to be made clear that you are being expected to do very little with these 15 patients daily over the weekend and most specifically that discharges are discouraged. You can check to make sure 15 patients are safe, but you can't reasonably be expected to do things like discharge planning or even collateral collecting over the weekend with that number.

 

[reca]

Why should residents accept lower offers than attendings? Do the hospitals generate less revenue/lose more money when a resident covers the unit vs an attending?

When I would moonlight as a resident, we were paid the exact same as attendings who did moonlighting.

 

[splik]

Why should residents accept lower offers than attendings? Do the hospitals generate less revenue/lose more money when a resident covers the unit vs an attending?

When I would moonlight as a resident, we were paid the exact same as attendings who did moonlighting.

Residents usually have fewer moonlighting opportunities than attendings, tend to be in more need to make money and thus are more likely to accept lower offers and be paid less. My hospital actually pays resident moonlighters MORE than attending physicians. We can't bill for any of the work the residents do while moonlighting unless an attending also sees the patients. This will be true for all hospitals that have residents. For places that don't have residents, it will depend but residents aren't always able to be credentialed with insurance, and in those cases the hospital is not making the pro fees, only the facility fees. So yes, often having resident moonlighters does mean less money than having attendings but this is very variable.