OVERTIME PAY—WHEN AND
TO WHOM?
Any staff member who works more than 40 hours in a seven-day
week must be paid overtime, the hourly pay rate plus one-half that amount, for
all hours worked over 40. Before you stop reading, thinking that this cannot
apply to any person on your team because your office is open only 32 (or
whatever) hours weekly, please read on. Does any team member work at home
during non-office hours, perhaps making confirmation calls or calls to schedule
overdue recare appointments, paying office bills, or completing monthly
management reports? If so, that at-home work counts toward the 40 hour total. Does
any staff member stay after office hours to clean, restock, or do lab work? Those
hours count also. Does anyone answer emergency calls in the evening or over a
weekend? If so, those hours must be counted toward the 40 hour limit.
Since 2004, the U.S. Department of Labor has allowed two
exemptions to the overtime rule:
1. Salaried
employees in a “bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity,”
and
2. Employees
earning less than $23,600 annually.
You are probably aware that the Labor Department issued a
new regulation in 2016 that was to become effective December 1, 2016 raising
the annual earnings level to $47,476. This meant that any salaried staff member
earning less than $47,476 annually would have to be paid overtime for all time
worked over 40 hours weekly.
On November 22, 2016, a U.S. District Court judge issued a
preliminary injunction blocking the new salary-level rule from taking effect in
all 50 states. Numerous lawsuits have been filed against the Labor Department
to halt the new regulation but no final ruling has been issued yet by the Trump
administration. As of this writing, the November injunction is still in effect.
The best advice for your practice: pay all staff members an
hourly rate rather than a salary, since the law is written to affect salaried
personnel. In addition, you should pay overtime to any staff member working for
your practice more than 40 hours per week in any capacity at any location. And
remain aware of pending changes in the proposed new annual salary rate of
$47,476 as the Labor Department and the litigants slug it out in the courts.
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