Wage troubles (not mine, but an interesting mess)

[HYHYBT]

Dad and Stepmom have a business together. They're getting older; not ready to retire just yet, but they did start closing at lunch on Fridays a while back, taking an extra half day of weekend.

There are two employees who work Fridays. One has been there for something like 20 years. Since she was hired for 40 hours, and since she would work Friday afternoons if the place were open, they've continued to pay her for Friday afternoons on the condition that the rest don't find out.

The other started after the schedule change, was hired originally for 37 hours a week, and is paid for that.

The other two do not work Fridays at all, and are paid for the days they do work. So, basically, everybody's paid for when they work, except one gets a bit extra, sort of grandfathered (grandmothered?) in.

Things went smoothly like that for over a year, but naturally, that doesn't go on forever. The 37 hour one found out, and naturally enough wants the extra time too. It likely won't be long before the others also hear about it, and the whole thing's a mess. I'm just watching and staying out of it, but thought it might possibly lead to an interesting discussion in an anonymous setting such as this one.

[Kuari]

I would say that the one who has been there longer was grandfathered under different employment provisions, that the newer employees are under a different employment provision and that is why the pay is different. If the newer employees don't like it then they are free to find somewhere else to work or just accept their own employment arrangements as they are currently set up - the employees do not have the right to dictate the hours or the terms of their pay outside of what is legally required.

[cindybubbles]

Perhaps they can have the place open all day Friday, leave early and trust the two employees working there to run the place by themselves?

[HYHYBT]

Perhaps they can have the place open all day Friday, leave early and trust the two employees working there to run the place by themselves?

The trouble is, it's a doctor's office. There isn't a lot in the way of the primary business that gets done when he's not in, and that's all finished for the week by lunch Friday anyway. There's always more paperwork, of course.

I would say that the one who has been there longer was grandfathered under different employment provisions, that the newer employees are under a different employment provision and that is why the pay is different. If the newer employees don't like it then they are free to find somewhere else to work...

All true... but hopefully this can be smoothed out. At any rate, I'm glad to be just a bystander.

[Hyena Dandy]

The one who was hired for 37, was hired for 37. The one who was hired for 40, was hired for 40. It'd be silly to pay someone you hired for 37 for 40, while you'd presumably have to pay the 40 person for the 40 because that's what you agreed to do.

[cindybubbles]

The trouble is, it's a doctor's office. There isn't a lot in the way of the primary business that gets done when he's not in, and that's all finished for the week by lunch Friday anyway. There's always more paperwork, of course.

What about hiring another doctor to fill in for him? Perhaps a student or recent graduate from med school?

[Aragarthiel]

I'd want to know how the 37 hour guy found out, because if the 40 hour person told them knowing they weren't supposed to, I could see that as grounds to dock them those hours they aren't actually working. A "You caused this problem, now it's your problem" sort of thing. Now, odds are the guy just came across some paperwork or something, in which case, yeah, it'll sort itself out.

[Andara Bledin]

It's pretty much against the First Amendment to forbid employees from discussing what they make. Plus, Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act marks out that employees can gather for various reasons including collective bargaining, which requires that various wage rates be known to the employees collectively.

So, essentially, 'pay secrecy' has been unenforceable for most of a century. Even a non-disclosure agreement doesn't trump the law.

It's worth noting, however, that if the discussion is just one person bragging, then it's not protected. But if it's people comparing notes on what they make, then it is.

Also, if the knowledge of the 40-hour worker's status was not arrived at through regular conversation (say, somebody found out by snooping or overheard the info), then they are not protected.

[HYHYBT]

What about hiring another doctor to fill in for him? Perhaps a student or recent graduate from med school?

He's wanted for a long while now to get a second doctor in. As I understand it, new doctors don't want small towns, and they do want to be specialists and/or work in a hospital, so not many would be interested. Somewhat contradictory, but this particular town also seems to have slightly too many already, so there's not a lot of extra business to bring in by having a second one in this practice. But I don't know much about that aspect; it's none of my business.

And I've been out of town since Friday morning, and so haven't heard anything further on this since Thursday afternoon. My best guess is that one saw the other filling out their time sheet.

[AccountingDrone]

He's wanted for a long while now to get a second doctor in. As I understand it, new doctors don't want small towns, and they do want to be specialists and/or work in a hospital, so not many would be interested. Somewhat contradictory, but this particular town also seems to have slightly too many already, so there's not a lot of extra business to bring in by having a second one in this practice. But I don't know much about that aspect; it's none of my business.

And I've been out of town since Friday morning, and so haven't heard anything further on this since Thursday afternoon. My best guess is that one saw the other filling out their time sheet.

My PCP has some sort of deal with the hospital near him, he gets various residents in to do shifts, I would imagine that they pick up the shifts to make money and get experience in the normal GP sort of practicum. They tend to stick around for about a year, then he gets a new batch in. He will occasionally get one interested in endocrinology or cardiology and will use them for my periodic checkups so they can get a bit of a taste of someone with slightly odder ailments than the usual stuff.

I don't mind being used as a training aid, I grew up near a teaching hospital and most of my doctors have been associated with teaching hospitals. When I did the first cancer shuffle back in 1995, the OB/GYN on base ran his trainees through me for learning specific pelvics and working on wound care. I helped Rob's EMT 1 class train in water and car extraction and giving shots [I needed the tetanus booster and got the recruit and overseas vaccination packages. *sigh*]

[bainsidhe]

I think they first need to correct the long-term employee's wage so that it accurately reflects hours worked. For example, they could increase her hourly wage so that 37 hours equals what used to be 40 hours pay. That's honestly what they should have done from the start. As it is, she's been receiving 3 bonus hours of pay for hours she didn't work.

And while the concerns of the other employee(s) need to be addressed, I wouldn't get too worried about it. The first employee has been with the office a very long time and has seniority, so it's no surprise she receives a different wage.

Either way, glad it isn't me dealing with this.

[TheHuckster]

I agree with bainsidhe. I would have given the employee a 9-10% raise to make up for the less hours, which comes out to around how much the difference in hours was. Much less complicated, and easier to explain. Either that or just put the employee on salary.

[HYHYBT]

AccountingDrone: The whole population is around 7,000 people. The hospital has been lucky to stay open, and is far too small to have residents. Good idea, though.

[Panacea]

What about hiring another doctor to fill in for him? Perhaps a student or recent graduate from med school?

It doesn't make good business sense to hire an extra person to keep an office open a few hours more on one day of the week, just to keep one employee at 40 hours.

He's wanted for a long while now to get a second doctor in. As I understand it, new doctors don't want small towns, and they do want to be specialists and/or work in a hospital, so not many would be interested. Somewhat contradictory, but this particular town also seems to have slightly too many already, so there's not a lot of extra business to bring in by having a second one in this practice. But I don't know much about that aspect; it's none of my business.

Reimbursement rates are so low that the only way doctors can keep an independent practice going is through volume. Too much competition means less volume, which means you might not be able to keep the doors open. That's a problem in a small town.

I know this may seem strange given how much doctors charge, but what they actually get is far less than what is billed. Getting paid by insurance companies requires billing specialists to navigate obtuse bureaucracies. By the time they pay rent, overhead, salaries, and their school loans, many doctors are making minimum wage to practice medicine unless they are in a high priced speciality.

Now if your doc friend wants to expand the practice a bit, that's a different story than what cindybubbles was suggesting. Has he considered hiring a nurse practitioner? It would be cheaper, and she ought to be able to do everything he does; he would just have to sign off on her prescriptions depending on what state you are in.

[HYHYBT]

Your first two paragraphs, I know well enough in the general sense (though with student loans gone long ago and the building owned outright, or, rather, rented by the business from its owners, I don't know the exact amount but the money's not that bad). Actually, I've just begun, just barely, learning it in a more specific, practical sense: stepmom has started teaching me the billing and insurance-handling that she normally does.

Dad's looking at getting a nurse practitioner again. He had one about ten years ago, or else it was a physician's assistant. It went badly enough (in ways I'd rather not go into, especially not knowing all the details or the other side) to put him off trying again for a long while, but it's probably time to start looking again. What he really wants, though, is still a new doctor. Well, assuming nothing goes wrong with his health, he's still got some time to work all that out. As for me, if the place stays open and I don't do anything too boneheaded, I've got a stable source of work, and if it doesn't, by then I should at least have experience to put down on a resume.

All that aside, I do have an update on the point of the thread: I was told yesterday that the 40-hour person will henceforth write down 37 hours on her time sheet, and her rate will remain the same, but I'm supposed to fill in the dollar amounts as if it said 40. Which may not be the best way of handling things, and the numbers' not matching makes me cringe a bit, but maybe it will work for a while.