Decrease in Patient Visits Lead to PA Furlough
As a career in demand, I never imagined getting laid off as a PA. Although lives are being saved due to the drastic measures being taken to lower the spread of the virus, not one person will be saved from the social, economic and emotional repercussions.
I am among the millions of other Americans who have been laid off or furloughed during this interesting time. Our patient visits have been greatly reduced because we do a lot of procedures that are considered “elective”.
This has been the case across healthcare in our community, including the hospitals and ERs. The social distancing has helped keep the number of COVID-19 cases in Oregon much lower than our neighboring states. It has also kept other patients away from medical facilities.
The ban on elective procedures and the decrease in visits has been a financial burden to many organizations. This has resulted in layoffs or furloughs for many medical organizations. My employer has furloughed PAs, along with physicians and NPs, to a minimum of fifty percent of normal patient contact hours.
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This past week I was furloughed one-hundred percent, indefinitely. Unlike the recession in 2008, the difficult part with this economic downfall is that there is a quick fix. As soon as the ban on social distancing is lifted the economy could return to normal, but no one will say when that will be.
Right now I remain hopeful that my furlough will not last longer than a couple of weeks to a month, but the uncertainty is what worries me. I’ll use this time to take care of some projects around the house, catch up on CME and look into other job possibilities.
I am thankful that I’ve been able to save money and have a good emergency fund in place. I’ll be able to survive without a paycheck for several months, but depending on how long this goes, the stress of not having a paycheck will continue to increase.
In medicine, we recommend treatments based on risk versus benefit. Is the risk for a ninety-year-old to go through knee surgery greater than the benefit? I wonder if the benefit of social distancing is greater than the risk of mental health and other economical downfalls from sheltering in place.
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I was put to part time status for the month of April and went back to full time on May 4. I work in a busy OB GYN office with 10 physicians and I am the only PA. Things will get better for everyone soon!!
I returned to work on may 4 as well. It’s been a transition getting back into the swing of things. A lot of new processes.
Are you seeing full patient schedules yet? My practice is only seeing OB patients and “urgent” gyn issues, so right now we are only open 8-12 weekdays and only 2-3 providers are there (out of 13) on any given day, so they are staggered. Then the provider does several telehealth visits in the early pm. May be because we are in Mass., which is the third highest area of Covid-19 infections -we are at the plateau now but not quite definitely coming down yet….
Most of our primary care is at about 50%. I work in pain management so we are back doing injections at about 50% of normal. I worked 2 full days and 2 half days this week. Other specialties are still limited as well.
Fortunately my supervising physician is my older brother, so we’ve shared the burden of a 25% patient reduction. We specialize in skin cancer (medical/surgical dermatology), so feel lucky to be able to keep our office open and staff working.
I was recently laid off and like many that have commented before me, never did I imagine this would happen to me (us). Unfortunately I had just finished buying a new home so all my “emergency” fund was used up. The stress and instability of these times has definitely done a number on my mental health. Trying to stay positive though.
so sorry to hear that. This is such a stressful time for so many.
My last day working was March 20th; I was told I would be on “indefinite furlough”; I was the only PA in a solo practitioner’s office (gastroenterology); I am highly specialized in gastroenterology since becoming a PA 18 years ago. Every position out there is for emergency medicine or urgent care at the moment. I have applied to many places but I feel that the response is proof of one of 2 things; hiring freezes or influx of people who have been furloughed or laid off in the market, or both. I wish you all well and wouldn’t wish this position I have been put in on anyone, however, I’m sure that many of you are in the exact position that I am, as I was reading the above article, it was as if I wrote it.
I think right now many are gearing up for the flood of patients to come in once things are improved.
Our hospital cut all MD salaries, encouraged them to take sabbatical, unpaid time away, etc. Plus their RVU’s are so drastically down that all of the MD’s will make way less this year. Then, in late March they furloughed ALL the PAs, NPs, and CRNAs across the board with zero notice. We were allowed to use 92 hours of sick time and then apply for unemployment. We were told we would be phased back in after the MDs schedules were filled to a certain degree. It has been extremely challenging emotionally and financially leaving many of us feeling like we’ve been thrown to the curb. The silver lining has been more time at home with family.
definitely have to look for those silver linings in times like this!
I am going on week 6 of furlough in family practice in St Paul, return date unknown. I was told I might be brought back for some admin “projects” part time but not is patient care. So very frustrating.
I have been lucky so far still reciving FT pay but working less hours at times. PAs in my practice have been trained for telemedicine and we are now taking those shifts. I have been thinking about all the changes going on and the posability of longterm cuts. I think now more than ever we should try and become active in our local and national organizations if possible because we need to push ahead and fight for our extened privileges to remain marketable. Prayers to all.
I was told to cut my clinic hours to days a week in March and then in April I was told due to loss of money and COVID, the hospital will be closing my clinic altogether as of May 7. I will no longer be employed indefinitely. My poor patients! It’s horrible and they feel as though I have abandoned them, some I have cared for for many years. This is strange and stressful times, but I do pray it will end and somehow we can recover from this. I am trying to find a place to relocate but it will not be easy during this pandemic scare.
I too was furloughed (was full-time in a busy OB-GYN practice) -I continued to be on call overnight on weekends (from home) and was only paid for that ($200 a night!). I was able to start collecting unemployment as in Mass. you can collect if your hours are reduced against your will, which helped as this was so sudden and I could not have paid my mortgage otherwise. The doctors (it is a physician-owned group) continue to see the OB patients and urgent gyn problems, and had some of the midlevels (PA’s and NP’s) working 4 hours, 1-2 days a week, and only getting paid for that. Then they got a small business loan and we are all “back” full-time, but for only 8 weeks (until the $ runs out). There is still not enough patient volume, so I am triaging calls all day, sending Rx refills, abstracting transfer charts, basically doing nursing work without seeing patients just to keep busy and justify my paycheck. Some people are doing telehealth -we are just starting to ramp up on that. The worst thing is, not knowing what will happen next and how long this will last…Our physician/employers have not been very transparent about their plans and are obviously taking care of themselves first and the 7 of us midlevels last. I have been a PA for over 40 years, but I was not ready to retire yet. I had hoped to go a few more years and work part-time -now, who knows? It’s not a good feeling to be in this situation….
I have been furloughed since the beginning of April until at least August, I’m told. Without pay. Our patient volumes in the hospital and clinics are so underwhelming, our hospital has already lost 70 million dollars.
I’m a plastic surgery PA and have been furloughed since mid-March. Although finically I’m ok for now I miss working and seeing patients.
I was furloughed, along with all the other PA’s in our practice, indefinitely effective 4/26. ENT, Saint Paul, MN
I was furloughed a week ago. I actually was initially deployed at the end of March and worked in a unit that had previously been converted from a surgical specialty unit to a COVID unit for about a month. Fortunately, that unit was closed about a week ago. However, I work in Neurosurgery and our caseload is emergency only right now. That leaves me with no real work right now. I am hopeful this will last a month or so, but I am uneasy with the uncertainty.
thanks for the comment. The uncertainty of everything is the hardest thing to this.
I too, as a PA-C never dreamt in a million years of being laid off. It wasn’t a furlough or job share, I was laid off effective immediately. Though I did enjoy living “my best” life now, I am blessed by God to have a financial savings. And yes, it won’t last long. I have home projects and recertification to study for, however I find it hard to focus. The whole situation seems surreal. Yet, my faith is in God, and I trust my future to Him.
Sorry to hear that. Unfortunate that they laid you off. It definitely shows a lot about an organization on how they handle adversity.
Even in EMERGENCY medicine, PAs are having hours reduced, part time employees furloughed, and some employers are even trying to put us on call (without pay) based on ED volumes. Part of the problem with some of these changes is that when a business gets used to running a certain way, some of the “cost saving” changes can become permanent. I find it insulting that employers tell us to reuse PPE, be available for the supposed surge, and then cut our hours, and try to make our scheduled shifts into unpaid call shifts after only a couple weeks of 30% volume decrease. And some even want to be able to call us in on our off days if it gets busy for a few hours.
I hope this stops soon, because the longer this goes on, the more chance some of these survival measures will become permanent. Just look at some of the big corporate ED groups cutting pay, and benefits… In the middle of a pandemic! If that isn’t abuse, I don’t know what is.
We step up to get the job done. We do what’s best for our patients.
This isn’t what we signed up for.
I understand from the business side that something has to be done to save money. Businesses can’t stay afloat with having any “customers”. It is a little nerve racking to think about how this is going to change life. We will never go back to our previous “normal”. I think this will change how we do things forever.
I work in general pediatrics and have been furloughed since mid-April. I’m hoping that parents will be going back to work and kids will be in summer camps in June. Still, we may not be busy enough to hire me back for several mos. It is the unknown that’s hard. Do I hold out, or do I look for another job…..
How much do you like your current job? It might be a good time to find something new. the hard thing is that a lot aren’t hiring but if you’re open to a different specialty you might be able to find something.