Vacation Buyback Policy

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Don't have that in academics. Use it or lose it. I can carry over up to 50 days into the next academic year. Unfortunately I cannot sell or transfer vacation days to my colleagues either.

Bonus: I can freely donate vacation/sick days to a general pot that theoretically gets distributed to those who need it, but I suspect that's a big fat lie and gets lost into a HR black hole. What a ****ing joke.
 
in private practice we do not buy back vacation from anyone but you can feel free to buy/sell from someone else that wants it. Free market and negotiate a rate but usually just ballpark it around what you are currently making per week when working with slight bumps up or down depending on demand for a particular time of year.

I have had years where I wanted extra vacation and bought it and years where I had too much with no plans to do anything so sold it to someone else.
 
If you’re in academics where the free market is anathema, I would consider fair to be approx 1500-2000/day if you work an 8-10 hour day. They will never offer that much though because their goal is to get everyone to use their vacation and avoid paying out more than they have to, because it doesn’t matter to them how many people are working as long as the cases get done. Thus that’s money off the top for them. Call selling, however, is a zero sum game and is therefore acceptable.

We can sell our vacation I believe but it is at a rate that is so low so as not be worthwhile, so no one has ever done it.
 
Our group requires all full timers to take the same amount of vacation, so in theory, everyone works the same number of days as well. There is no carryover to the next year. Vacation is picked in August for the following calendar year. You must pick all your allotted weeks. At that point you own it. You can swap weeks with someone else. You can swap weeks if a given week has available vacation slots. Or, if we need additional doc help on a given day or week, you'll get paid for working on those days.
 
We are going to be fairly short this summer before a few new grads join us in the fall, so we are now offering a vacation buy-back if anyone is interested in the group for the summer. Or you can sign up for moonlighting at an hourly rate.

I sold a week of vacation to one of my partners when I first started for some extra coin as well. I’d rather not give specific numbers, but try to make it substantial to offset the lifestyle hit it will make to your practice.
 
AdmiralChz said:
We are going to be fairly short this summer before a few new grads join us in the fall, so we are now offering a vacation buy-back if anyone is interested in the group for the summer. Or you can sign up for moonlighting at an hourly rate.

I sold a week of vacation to one of my partners when I first started for some extra coin as well. I’d rather not give specific numbers, but try to make it substantial to offset the lifestyle hit it will make to your practice.
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Are you saying that it's reasonable to take your average pay per week and then charge that + a "lifestyle hit" fee in order to sell a week of vacation?
 
watermelon master said:
Are you saying that it's reasonable to take your average pay per week and then charge that + a "lifestyle hit" fee in order to sell a week of vacation?
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Maybe. Depends on the finances of your group and how you are with manpower - aka supply vs demand. For us we need to not have as many off in the summer so we are paying a premium.
 
AdmiralChz said:
We are going to be fairly short this summer before a few new grads join us in the fall, so we are now offering a vacation buy-back if anyone is interested in the group for the summer. Or you can sign up for moonlighting at an hourly rate.

I sold a week of vacation to one of my partners when I first started for some extra coin as well. I’d rather not give specific numbers, but try to make it substantial to offset the lifestyle hit it will make to your practice.
Click to expand...
For our group, the group pays whoever is working. So - if you can get someone to work for you when they're on vacation, they'll get your pay for the day instead of you having to pay them out of pocket. No sense paying someone with your own after-tax dollars if the group pays the other guy instead of you and deals with all the financial side.
 
jwk said:
For our group, the group pays whoever is working. So - if you can get someone to work for you when they're on vacation, they'll get your pay for the day instead of you having to pay them out of pocket. No sense paying someone with your own after-tax dollars if the group pays the other guy instead of you and deals with all the financial side.
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Doesn’t have to be after tax.

Also, what is “pay” for the day? Usually just an agreed upon amount, not necessarily the revenue you generate that day.
 
Over here our leave accumulates indefinitely.
you can also buy leave or take leave at half pay if staffing allows.
but you can’t sell leave
 
jwk said:
For our group, the group pays whoever is working. So - if you can get someone to work for you when they're on vacation, they'll get your pay for the day instead of you having to pay them out of pocket. No sense paying someone with your own after-tax dollars if the group pays the other guy instead of you and deals with all the financial side.
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Same. We can take as much time as we want but no work=no pay. Work=pay.
 
dannyboy1 said:
Vacation means getting paid not to work. No work=no pay is just unemployment....
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I’m in eat what you kill PP. We don’t work for some big daddy corporation. I’m paid on my collections from anesthesia care I personally deliver. Why would I expect to be paid if I’m not generating revenues? Where would that money come from? My partners? Why should they pay me to sit on the beach? Conversely why would I pay my partners if I am working and they are not?
 
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somedumbDO said:
Isn’t that way underselling?
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That’s the rate. $7500 for a week of vacation. Take it or leave it. Lates/call are worth additional.
I’ve bought and sold based on my plans for the year.
Personally I like to schedule a bunch of 3 day weekends in the Spring.
 
IlDestriero said:
That’s the rate. $7500 for a week of vacation. Take it or leave it. Lates/call are worth additional.
I’ve bought and sold based on my plans for the year.
Personally I like to schedule a bunch of 3 day weekends in the Spring.
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From residency, the attendings sold a week of call for 5k. Better than locums in a foreign place albeit for better price
 
dannyboy1 said:
Vacation means getting paid not to work. No work=no pay is just unemployment....
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Ah, the mindset of a corporate slave...

To be fair though, being self-employed can sometimes make you feel a little guilty about taking vacation. But then you remember that you’re the one in control and it’s not so bad.
 
Arch Guillotti said:
Doesn’t have to be after tax.

Also, what is “pay” for the day? Usually just an agreed upon amount, not necessarily the revenue you generate that day.
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If I actually pay you to work for me, that would be after-tax on my part.

Our doc shifts are set up on a "share" basis. Each shift has a share value - 1 for a regular weekday, perhaps 3 for a weekend night (I don't know the doc financials). We cover 24/7 at multiple facilities, so there has to be a shift setup that maintains coverage. A shift is not a set # of hours, but really just a start time, and then people peel off at the end of the day as cases finish. Add up the total number of shares each month for everyone in the group, and essentially take revenue minus overhead and come up with a dollar amount per share each month. Then total compensation is just # of shares times the amount per share. I have no idea what a share is worth, but they do, which is all that matters.
 
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thinkorswim said:
Ah, the mindset of a corporate slave...

To be fair though, being self-employed can sometimes make you feel a little guilty about taking vacation. But then you remember that you’re the one in control and it’s not so bad.
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We get 6 weeks paid. If someone needs more there is always the option to take unpaid...
 
nimbus said:
I’m in eat what you kill PP. We don’t work for some big daddy corporation. I’m paid on my collections from anesthesia care I personally deliver. Why would I expect to be paid if I’m not generating revenues? Where would that money come from? My partners? Why should they pay me to sit on the beach? Conversely why would I pay my partners if I am working and they are not?
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I’m a corporate drone. Don’t know or care about collections. Just want my paycheck and PTO....
 
nimbus said:
They’re paying you with money they made off you during the weeks you were working. The money didn’t come from Santa Claus.
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To get back to the original thread vacation buy back is 2k for a 9 hour day at my shop...
 
nimbus said:
Your employer is counting on that.
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Of course they are making money off me. That is the whole point of owning the practice. That being said I hustle a lot less then if I were an eat what you kill PP guy. I have definitely cancelled cases that i certainly would have done if I were in PP. also a lot of talking surgeons out of peripheral nerve blocks...
In the end you get what you pay for....
 
nimbus said:
I’m in eat what you kill PP. We don’t work for some big daddy corporation. I’m paid on my collections from anesthesia care I personally deliver. Why would I expect to be paid if I’m not generating revenues? Where would that money come from? My partners? Why should they pay me to sit on the beach? Conversely why would I pay my partners if I am working and they are not?
Click to expand...

This almost makes too much sense. may be that's why people don't understand it.
 
I'm in a model where we all get paid the same... and we all get the same amount of vacation. 8 weeks...
Buyback occurs at $1500 per day; can rollover 1 week per year
I never view the compensation worth it....

I have buddies in productivity models. Their vacation buyback is zero, because their vacation is unpaid.
One buddy takes four weeks a year.. because going on vacation is a double whammy- no compensation and increased expenses.. but he does ok so I don't feel so bad..
 
dr doze said:
If you work an extra 9 hours on a scheduled vacation or post call day, do you also get an extra $2K?


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
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Post call is 175/hr.
buyback of scheduled vacation time is 2k for 9 hr day (comes out to 220/hr)
 
jwk said:
Our group requires all full timers to take the same amount of vacation, so in theory, everyone works the same number of days as well. There is no carryover to the next year. Vacation is picked in August for the following calendar year. You must pick all your allotted weeks. At that point you own it. You can swap weeks with someone else. You can swap weeks if a given week has available vacation slots. Or, if we need additional doc help on a given day or week, you'll get paid for working on those days.
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That's exactly how we do it in my group as well. We have to take 8 weeks minimum vaca, then younger guys like myself who need money to pay off our soul crushing student debt will give a couple weeks vaca to the older guys, and just get paid for those days/calls we pick up.
 
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