I was wondering how everyone is compensated for being on-call. I receive on-call pay for weekends. However, during the week I am often awakened at 4 am with problems at our unit. I do not receive pay for this, and if I didn't answer the phone, I don't think I would be guilty of not fulfilling my duties. I enjoy providing support whenever it is necessary, but I take issue with providing a service and not being properly compensated for it. Does anyon have anything similar in nature to my situation? Thanks for your thoughts.

I have been with companies that would issue you
a pager and you were on call. We were compensated for it no matter if we got called or not. If you are not the chief tech I wouldnt worry about answering the phone.The Chief tech gets paid the big bucks for that.Once in a while is ok but when it becomes a regular thing it is time to speak up.In my experience if you dont speak up they will keep on calling you and more frequently.

I am the biomed, there is no chief tech, just me. I am not ever on call kinda, but if they call and i am at home i have to answer they say. If i have to go in then i get payed for 2 hours if it takes 2 minutes or 2 hours. Work over 2 hours its regular pay unless its at the end of the week. I have to comp everything off. But they have called me 4 or 5 times in one day and i have them fix it or tell them what to do with no pay for phone support. And speaking up, they just tell me where the door is located.

I was just called Firday on my day off and they needed help fixing and email account they messed up.

I make less than $14 an hour BTW.

We are essentially on call 24/7 during the week and have a single MT on call Friday night, Saturday and Sunday and only receive on call pay for the weekends. Our on call pay is a miniscule $15/day plus time worked which starts when we leave our house. The on call pay is a sore subject for me because the clinical staff get $25/day to be on call in case someone calls out sick, and they are only on call till 10AM.

Chuck

Z,
I have been on call for almost one year straight now. Every weekend. Sometimes I sneak away. They would call me in just to change out a machine or unstop a toilet.I live thirty miles away from my work. I had no life. I was ready to give up and find a new line of work until we got a new administor that told the staff I wasn't a turd herder. I do get compensated for being on call on the weekends, but week days are just that. I have to take comp time later in the week if I hit my forty hours and can't justify my overtime. I've been training a new helper, but many times he can't fix the problem so I come in anyway. That's the breaks until he becomes competant enough to hold his own. My suggestion is tell your supervisor that you've been on call forever and you need to be able to take a break from time to time.Express that even the nursing staff isn't expected to be on perpetual call. Suggest hiring or training some extra help. Even part time if you can't get a full time person. That's what I did and they finally relented and let me hire someone. Soon I'll be able to take that long awaited, uninterrupted vacation. As far as phone calls go I don't charge for that inconvenience.

I am oncall 24/7 and get a flat pay of $100.00 per month regardless of how often I get called. If I have to go in, I get mileage and the hours I work are taken as time owing at time and a half.

You are either on-call or you are not on-call. If you are expected to answer the phone 24/7 then your time is not your own and you should be compensated for it. "You have to pay me NOT to party". It may be difficult to assess a value to phone time but not impossible. If you have to go in, the clock should start when you leave your house, be paid a minimum regardless if you're there for 2 minutes or not and the clock should stop when you get home. Things are financially tight in the dialysis world but that doesn't mean you should work for free! Being on-call 24/7 for a year without some sort of compensation?!? What if you were ill or injured, what would they do then?

I'm on call 24/7 for both my units. I recieve $20 per unit per week. Which adds up to $80 every pay day to be on call.In situations of a down machine, my staff is trained on how to swap it out, they dont call me to just pull a machine(think god, cause thats just plain lame). In other situations, like all of us are instructed to do, try to solve and walk through over phone. If needed to come in, automatic 2 hour's, travel time and mileage. I think the company i work for does a pretty good job on fairness on this policy, and i'm happy with it. It also helps that both my units run well with great staff with COMMEN SENSE.

I'm the technical supervisor and it's a one man show...we are a hospital based/off site clinic in a rural area...i have an issued pager...i live 50 miles oneway from the clinic...i am not salary...gas prices are killing me...occaisonal early a.m. or saturday calls for five minutes of phone work are no big deal to me...if i have to come in i get a minimum of four hours(no mileage)last time i had to come in was a ten minute fix...time before that i had just arrived home after my 50 minute drive when my pager went off(odd)...twas the hospital...housekeeping spotted a leak in the water room(i close so this was 6:30 pm)had to turn right around and go back(hospital and building maintenance are not allowed to touch any of MY equipment)took about an hour to fix the leak(nipple on holding tank piping where RO quick connect attaches)I have a very good relationship with my DON/Admin so tweaking my time wasn't/isn't a problem...being on call comes with the territory...if you have the people and can rotate it, good...if not , so be it....but you do need to be compensated...some of us are not to easily replaced...where i am, experienced dialysis machine techs are very hard to come by...they need me and I love my job

We get call pay for he weekend that we are on call we alternate every 5th weekend. As for the week if we get called we have comp our time too.

I think we're supposed to get an hour of pay for each day we're on call. However, I'm not sure I've been getting it. Doesn't really matter though because things have been crazy lately and it's really not very high on my list of concerns. I've been getting called regardless of my on-call status. I'm the only one that's worked on Renatrons the last 2 years so nobody has parts or know-how but me. So if that goes down, I've gotta go in. All I get is time worked and mileage. Sadly, on-call pay is the least of my worries with this "new" company....

Sorry, my rant is done.

You are allowed to rant, dont be feel sorry about it. I think most of us are holding back and some times we let a little out. We should really have a forum for screaming and ranting.

How do you spell union?

I spell it..."FindaNewLineOfWork"

Though everyone would always like more money, I think most here would agree that we are adequately compensated and that while money is important we are in this business because we want to help people.

Chuck

This has been an issue for as long as I can remember. My take on this has always been this-when you were hired you agreed to a pay scale and were aware of the job requirements including being on call. If you did not like the terms you should not have accepted the position. If on call was added after you were hired you should have re-negotiated the terms of your employment.

We are all adults and professionals and should address our workplace concerns as such. There are more technical positions in dialysis than there are qualified technicians. If you are not happy with your current position check the classifieds.