Working Saturdays? This might be the straw that gets me to leave.

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borne_before

borne_before

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Do any of you work on a Saturday?

Some of the bean counters at my work decided to start a Saturday clinic for speech, occupational, and physical therapies. There is talk about slowly adding primary care, dental, and specialties. They're also considering adding, you guessed it, behavioral health. The logic is that we might be able to capture some of the market and decrease the burden of missing school.

But, there are some serious flaws: Most of out patients are medicaid - meaning that one or both of the parents are not really employed. The one's that do work usually work nights and weekends. Assuming that patients want to come in on a weekend, when their friends are off and they have to miss sports, etc.

When the launched it with the therapies, they really didn't give them a choice. However, they're just all gonna do like one Saturday a month. Management pitched it like they were going to hire a new person for Saturdays, but there is a hiring freeze.

I also just can't do it. My wife often has to work on a Saturday (she does lab stuff) and it's just not fair to my kid. Plus, it'd be a huge burden to my family and having to find a babysitter/childcare.

I know I am catastrophizing this a little, but it might be the last straw.
 
I had to do a few hours on a Saturday every couple of months. It was fine because I could flex the other four hours and leave early on a Friday, which I always enjoy. Also we were just there as backup for Primary Care so we didn't have to see patients. I don't have children, though, so I'm sure that makes a difference. And I was done by noon so not a big deal.

We eventually ended it though because there just wasn't enough patient utilization to justify the costs.
 
I do not in my clinical job, but do some grading, etc. for my adjunct teaching gigs. I wouldn't mind one Saturday a month in the clinic terribly though. It would give me the opportunity to have some mid week time off for random things like the dentist, errands, etc that I would usually have to take PTO for.

That being said, I get that most of the staff I work with would not be okay with this.

I would hope they at least consider a voluntary rotation or extra pay, PTO, etc as a perk for working outside the traditional work week. If that wasn't a conversation topic, that would give me a sour taste.

I guess we will see if the bean counters were right after some data is collected.
 
Any reason you have to keep this job? I used to have rotating on call on weekends and had to go in for the occasional emergency at my old job. No more. I would simply refuse to do it and say that your wife works on weekends and you have no childcare. If they don't cave, time to start job hunting.

For the young folks that want to do IBR and PSLF - This is why financial solvency is important. Less choices in life when you are drowning in debt.
 
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Sanman said:
Any reason you have to keep this job? I used to have rotating on call on weekends and had to go in for the occasional emergency at my old job. No more. I would simply refuse to do it and say that your wife works on weekends and you have no childcare. If they don't cave, time to start job hunting.

For the young folks that want to due IBR and PSLF - This is why financial solvency is important. Less choices in life when you are drowning in debt.
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The money is pretty good (like more than I expected in my second year post license). But, yeah, I've got a few options. I have no loans or anything.
 
borne_before said:
The money is pretty good (like more than I expected in my second year post license). But, yeah, I've got a few options. I have no loans or anything.
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Good job on the lack of loans. Build up the bank account, talk to your spouse, and make your stand when the time comes. You likely have some time as many organizations work slowly.

EDIT: I should note, given AA's response that we are assuming this will be mandatory? We just started a voluntary Saturday clinic at my VA to catch on a backlog of intakes due to COVID-19.
 
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They have Saturday clinics here, and they at least used to regularly involve mental health (on a rotating basis). The providers who worked Saturday got comp time for it, so they could take a different day off. At least theoretically.

If it were mandated and there weren't any additional form of recompense, I'd balk, and would strongly consider leaving if they still forged ahead. If there's pay or comp time to go with the day, then it's just a matter of how much you want to deal with the added burden. It seems like weekend care is becoming more common, but at the same time, I remember hearing that the mental health providers here had trouble filling their Saturday schedules because the patients weren't interested (evenings were far more popular).

Maybe you could pitch the idea of some evening clinics instead (at least for you)? Or even switch to 4x10, so you basically have an evening slot or two four days a week.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I actually performed a few after-hours assessments a handful of years ago to help catch up on backlog. I was paid extra for my time. Otherwise, my answer would've been "no."
 
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Agree with others. Its a lifestyle choice. If they require it and you don't want to do it (or can't), find something else. I don't think its unreasonable for any business to try offering different hours. That is especially true for any healthcare field, where having 24/7 staffing is often the norm. It is unreasonable for them to assume employees will be overjoyed at the idea and won't quit over the issue if all of a sudden their job circumstances change. And they have to make decisions about whether experimenting with the new business line is worth potential turnover.

I'm an academic and (very) used to working weekends, but typically from the comfort of my home office. Occasional weekend clinical coverage wouldn't be a big deal to me, but I wouldn't volunteer for it regularly. Context also matters, right? If I'm being offered a salaried job at 250k that asks me to cover a weekend here and there, my feelings are very different than if an existing employer paying me only 70k is now asking me to work two extra days each month but still expects me there 5 days/week.

My big concern would be how regular those hours would have to be. I'm not sure 1x/month saturday therapy is helpful. If those hours are for intake/transfer or assessment-only, I could potentially see utility.
 
My experience with outpatient Saturday work:

1) Patients beg you for a Saturday appointment. They will tell you all about their work, their kids' after school activities, etc.
2) On Friday, patients or their caregivers: stay up late, get drunk, get laid, eat a full pizza and fall asleep on the sofa, etc.
3) On Saturday AM: patients/caregivers wake up feeling bad, wake up feeling great, remember that one chore they have to do, remember their kids' sporting event, etc.
4) I behave responsibly, go to bed at a reasonable time on Friday, wake up early on Saturday, open the office myself since staff is not there, and then end up sitting around all day Saturday for a 50%+ no show rate, with an additional 10% rate of showing up late.
5) Clinic staff is not on time, or no show, or making snarky remarks.
6) In the case of geros doing mid day neuropsychs, brought in by a family member: lunch becomes their big social event of the month, which extends for 2 hrs. The patient will justify leaving you waiting.
7) Patients discuss how #4 will never happen again. It does.
8) I leave the office tired and kinda pissed off, which affects Saturday nights.
9) Referral sources, clinics, etc all identify you as the person for weekend stuff, which increases referral volume. They also want access to you Mon-Fri as well.

My experience with inpatient Saturday work
1) I go to bed early Friday, wake up at a reasonable hour, get to the hospital around 10AM. Why 10AM and not 8AM?
2) Staff is behind schedule with food, therapies, whatever. You show up early and you're just waiting around.
3) Patients are slow moving, and some will try to delay you until lunch with requests to finish breakfast, have staff help with an ADL, make a quick phone call, etc.
4) If there are visiting hours, the patient and visitors will DEMAND your work stop, because they are VISITING! VISITING I SAY! I know...
5) If you are dumb enough to hang around with an ID badge or coat that identifies you as staff, or if the nurses hate you enough to call you
"Dr." in the earshot of a family, be prepared to have some visitors demand to speak to you about A patient. It does not matter if the patient isn't yours. It doesn't matter that you are not a PMR physician, neurologist, physical therapist, dietitian, etc. It doesn't matter that you cannot discharge anyone, change medications, speak their language, know anything about that subject, etc. They are your problem now.
6) #5 but with phone calls .
7) You can do a lot of work, if you have good support and time it right. Timing can be a 15 minute window.
 
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PsyDr said:
My experience with outpatient Saturday work:

1) Patients beg you for a Saturday appointment. They will tell you all about their work, their kids' after school activities, etc.
2) On Friday, patients or their caregivers: stay up late, get drunk, get laid, eat a full pizza and fall asleep on the sofa, etc.
3) On Saturday AM: patients/caregivers wake up feeling bad, wake up feeling great, remember that one chore they have to do, remember their kids' sporting event, etc.
4) I behave responsibly, go to bed at a reasonable time on Friday, wake up early on Saturday, open the office myself since staff is not there, and then end up sitting around all day Saturday for a 50%+ no show rate, with an additional 10% rate of showing up late.
5) Clinic staff is not on time, or no show, or making snarky remarks.
6) In the case of geros doing mid day neuropsychs, brought in by a family member: lunch becomes their big social event of the month, which extends for 2 hrs. The patient will justify leaving you waiting.
7) Patients discuss how #4 will never happen again. It does.
8) I leave the office tired and kinda pissed off, which affects Saturday nights.
9) Referral sources, clinics, etc all identify you as the person for weekend stuff, which increases referral volume. They also want access to you Mon-Fri as well.
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This has been my experience with regard to call and emergencies as well. Particularly #9 with regard to weekend call. All of a sudden referrals bypass the on-call number and are calling me directly because I pick up the phone or call back in a timely manner.

Saturday outpatient work at an LTC facility? A breeze. Avoid all the regular staff that need you for emergencies. Breeze through clients as fast as possible because they are all in their rooms. Finish paperwork over a late lunch and go home early.
 
I should add I'm also very suspicious it would go well. I'm thinking of moving my clinic day to Tuesday or Wednesday because the Monday/Friday no-show rates at our clinics are too high. I find it difficult to believe Saturday would be anything but worse.
 
To pile on: the outside, non-clinical weekend work I do also has a higher-than-normal no-show and cancellation rate.

I'd say it's fair to expect spending a lot of your time sitting around if you're there on a Saturday. If you agree to it, I'd have other things you can work on ready to go, just in case.
 
At my prior jobs (AMCs), working a 6 day WK was pretty standard. I would work Sat mornings during the college football season and meet up w friends for the game. Out of season I'd put in a full day, either Sat or Sun. I was a climber until I realized it was a scam. No "extra" pay and just more hours for them to expect me to see patients.

If I had a typical M-F at a hospital/out-pt clinic, any wkend clinics starts w increased compensation or it is a non-starter. Don't get fooled into "flex" time bc you'll invariably work more....for free. Depending on your compensation structure, I'd want my time covered/credited for any No Shows.

I've been FT private practice going on 3yrs and I def work more weekends than anticipated. I begrudgingly offered some testing slots on Saturdays during my first year and the no show rate was higher than during the week, so I stopped.

The trade-off now is more flexibility during the week. COVID-19 has made days of the week rather meaningless, so I sometimes take off a half or full day during the week to hike/golf/etc. I probably don't "work" more than 45-50hr/WK, but I vastly prefer to work 6-8hr days during COVID-19 instead of 4 10hr+ days w. Fridays and Sat for straight report writing.
 
For me...it's flexibility. I have struggled to be as efficient as I was pre-COVID, so some days I'll cut out early and work a longer day later in the week. I am doing more IMEs and legal work, so my F2F is probably down 35%, but my billing is the same or above pre-COVID numbers.
 
PsyDr said:
On Friday, patients or their caregivers: stay up late, get drunk, get laid, eat a full pizza and fall asleep on the sofa, etc.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a good time. That's Friday thread activity right there.


Sorry to hijack from the OP, but from reading above, any of you with experience in outpatient cash private prac have experience on Fridays vs. Saturdays? How much better are Fridays? When I was in clinic in the hospital Fridays it was no show day. But now that I don't work for the man on Fridays, with 3 day weekends and hearing the above, I am thinking that may be my optimal private practice day.
 
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I work residential and PHP. Saturdays are just another normal day 🙂

When I was in outpatient I opened Saturday hours because so many patients asked for them. Then they would no show half of the time. So I said screw that. I did open more evening hours, and I found that those were a better payoff than Saturdays.
 
chicandtoughness said:
I work residential and PHP. Saturdays are just another normal day 🙂

When I was in outpatient I opened Saturday hours because so many patients asked for them. Then they would no show half of the time. So I said screw that. I did open more evening hours, and I found that those were a better payoff than Saturdays.
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My in-house counselor mentioned awhile ago that she's had good success extending her schedule to include later appointments v. working on the weekend. Obviously COVID-19 has jacked schedules up for the past number of months, though I suspect when schools finally do get going again, the evening appt slots are going to be gold. I don't care when she sees patients, though I do care about No Shows bc those cost me money.
 
Ollie123 said:
I'm thinking of moving my clinic day to Tuesday or Wednesday because the Monday/Friday no-show rates at our clinics are too high.
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AbnormalPsych said:
How much better are Fridays? When I was in clinic in the hospital Fridays it was no show day.
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Wow! I'm almost always busy on Fridays, so much so that when I changed jobs I made sure to have a Friday clinic. I thought it was a popular day for therapy.
 
MamaPhD said:
Wow! I'm almost always busy on Fridays, so much so that when I changed jobs I made sure to have a Friday clinic. I thought it was a popular day for therapy.
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Probably some local and population variability, I'd guess. Fridays are usually pretty good for show-rate at my clinic. Interestingly, my no-shows have recently mostly been interior weekdays (i.e., Tuesdays and Wednesdays).
 
AcronymAllergy said:
Probably some local and population variability, I'd guess. Fridays are usually pretty good for show-rate at my clinic. Interestingly, my no-shows have recently mostly been interior weekdays (i.e., Tuesdays and Wednesdays).
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I could never see a pattern as far as days of the week in my VA days. It always just seemed to come in waves. I'd have like 3-4 weeks with 0 no-shows, and then a week or 2 with half my schedule no-showed. Referral type usually was more indicative of no-show rate. Dementia evals tended to show (we did several reminder calls) and mTBI pts definitely no-showed more often.
 
WisNeuro said:
I could never see a pattern as far as days of the week in my VA days. It always just seemed to come in waves. I'd have like 3-4 weeks with 0 no-shows, and then a week or 2 with half my schedule no-showed. Referral type usually was more indicative of no-show rate. Dementia evals tended to show (we did several reminder calls) and mTBI pts definitely no-showed more often.
Click to expand...

Yeah, there's no overall pattern. I have majority dementia referrals, and yep, they have the best show rate.
 
Just an update. My boss just pulled me in the office and said that Saturdays are def happening. I told him I just cant because my wife works on Saturdays and that I hate to draw a line in the sand... We will see where it goes. As a plus, they did some layoffs last week, so I probs just bumped myself to the top of the list.
 
borne_before said:
Just an update. My boss just pulled me in the office and said that Saturdays are def happening. I told him I just cant because my wife works on Saturdays and that I hate to draw a line in the sand... We will see where it goes. As a plus, they did some layoffs last week, so I probs just bumped myself to the top of the list.
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Why do you work there again? This seems like a not so great job.
 
Sanman said:
Why do you work there again? This seems like a not so great job.
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It's not a great job and it's toxic AF. I work here because, on paper, it's a perfect fit. It's a good mix of asd/id/ld/adhd evaluations with pediatrics. Our population is really really low SES, so it feels good help them. These positions can be hard to come by for someone with a doctorate in school psych. So I feel a little pigeon holed. I'm also having a really bad mixture of impostor syndrome with a touch of with my reports and recommendaitons are junk and I'm a ****ty therapist, today.
 
Sanman said:
Why do you work there again? This seems like a not so great job.
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Get a copy of your contract, forward emails about Saturday to yourself. I'm not an attorney, but I'm guessing this is a breach of contract. If fired, you're likely eligible for unemployment. They'll say you were fired for not doing Saturdays. You'll say your contract doesn't cover Saturdays.
 
Got to know where your line is, but I always recommend setting up your next step before you leave somewhere. Might as well get paid while you secure another job. Heck, I considered leaving here months ago, but then COVID hit, and I make my full salary and benefits for about 20 hrs of work a week. Gave me plenty of time to finalize all of my PP stuff.

Bottom line, if it's a line in the sand principle issue, do what you have to do. But, if it's not, keep that paycheck while you plan your egress.
 
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