Doctor Salaries!

[Kyle]

Just read through your post properly and realised what you're asking about is the concept of levels generally.

Staff specialists and their employer agree on a level between 1 and 5, what this affects is how private patients (those with private health insurance or veterans in nsw) are dealt with (both admitted and outpatients in public hospital clinics). Level 1 to 4 are simple and level 5 is a bit more complicated.

Level one is the simplest and the lowest level of pay. Any private patients you see in hospital, the entire amount generated through billing their private insurance goes to the hospital. In return the doctor gets a 20% bonus applied AFTER (this is important) the 17.4% bonus to salary. The doctor then regardless of any billings always gets the same amount, 120% of the amount post special allowance. Thus they get 140.88% of the actual scheduled award salary for the level, i.e. almost half as much again.

For level 2 you can get back some of those billings, up to 24% of the (again, post special allowance) salary, but in return only get a 14% private practice allowance not 20% as in level 1, however if you don't bill enough to make 11% of your salary your billing is supplemented up 11% of the salary (post special allowance but before private practice allowance), so functionally you never get less than a 25% addition to your post, and thus level 2s always earn more than level 1s. Level 2 has another layer of allowances, the others don't, in addition to the supplementation if billings are under 11%, there's another provision that if billings are between 11% and 18% of post special allowance salary a further 7% of said salary is applied.

Level 3s get an even lesser private practice allowance, only 8%, but in return can draw up to 36% of (post special allowance) salary in private billings, with guaranteed minimum billings of 17% of (post special allowance) salary. Thus the minimum for a level 3 and a level 2 are the same, but the maximum possible earnings are higher for level 3.

Level 4 is further down the private practice route again with no private practice allowance, but possible billings up to 50% of post allowance salary, and guaranteed minimum billing supplementation of 25% thus they have the same minimum earnings as level 2 and 3, but once again there are higher maximum earnings for level 4s if they do enough private billings.

Like I said level 5 is more complicated as it works from a basis of the doctor working 3/4 time and so the base award salary is reduced by 25% and the Dr gets 25% of their time for their own private practice, in return they get no private practice allowance and no guaranteed minimum billings. They can however draw up to 133% of their post special allowance salary (so 100% of a full-time salary), from the 75% of their time working for the health service.

Like I said it's complicated, I think that it's done this way so that the salaries appear artificially lower than they are, after all even at level 1, there's a MINIMUM of 40% added to the award salary, and at many levels much more. Seriously, what other public award would have arrangements like that? I think it's designed to be opaque.

[chinaski]

Just quietly, it's probably a bit of a waste of energy for you guys to invest too much time trying to understand specialist awards and contract stipulations that will undoubtedly be very different by the time you are at working that level.

[Hayden]

Quote: Originally Posted by chinaski

Just quietly, it's probably a bit of a waste of energy for you guys to invest too much time trying to understand specialist awards and contract stipulations that will undoubtedly be very different by the time you are at working that level.

Agreed.

(But it's nice to have a possible future salary in your mind as a motivating factor, especially during exams.... )

[Jono]

Make sure you put any salary through the PAYG calculator on the ATO's website before you get too excited though!

[theangelofdarkness]

Internship rates in the ACT were ~ $56,000 this year in their application info.
QLD was more like $60,000, and I did not pay attention to the rest .

[Hayden]

Tassie was one of the highest base salaries for interns..

[NoobyMcNooberton]

Quote: Originally Posted by Hayden

Agreed.

(But it's nice to have a possible future salary in your mind as a motivating factor, especially during exams.... )

[theangelofdarkness]

I'm in my last year. I'm exhausted, getting very frustrated with study, I feel like I know nothing and much of my clinical time feels like I am standing in the way.

Then I remind myself that whilst I feel all of these things now, next year I will be paid and therefore be expected to be at least a little responsible. It's amazing how the dark cloud of boredom/frustration/demotivation lifts when I think about what it will mean.
Knowing I will be paid to know how to do these things competently is a good driving factor to make me learn it now, while I can still make mistakes.

[godoftoast]

Quote: Originally Posted by NoobyMcNooberton

[NoobyMcNooberton]

Quote: Originally Posted by godoftoast