sent to supdssworkgroup and director_finance_administration_meeting lists on 3/29/2010
TO: School of Medicine Directors of Finance and Administration; Postdoctoral Administrators; Fellowship Program Directors
RE: Pay Levels for Clinical Fellows Effective July 2010
Effective July 1, 2010, all clinical postdoctoral trainees appointed through the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs (OPA) will be subject to their appropriate PGY levels set by the Graduate Medical Education (GME) office at the SHC. This applies to any trainee who will be seeing patients at the hospital, in accredited programs, in non-accredited programs, or in advanced training. This decision follows School policy of 2008 which stated that trainees should be paid based on the established SHC PGY levels and benefits, and which further suggested that departments develop an implementation plan to meet this mandate by 2009. In the last two years, most departments and divisions successfully developed such plans and the majority of trainees today are funded at or near their appropriate PGY level. This memo establishes the PGY scale as the required pay scale for all trainees at the School with clinical responsibilities.
While this policy addresses the concerns raised by trainees with respect to compensation, other issues regarding benefits remain. Differences in the benefits offered to clinical trainees who are on SHC payroll and those offered through the Stanford University Postdoctoral Benefits Plan are a point of malcontent for fellows. The problem arises when fellows drop from SHC payroll to less than 50% FTE, which results in their loss of SHC benefits. The impact is also in loss of eligibility to receive social security or the state-funded Paid Family Leave (PFL) benefits when the switch to OPA changes the trainee’s funding from salary to stipend (this has been a problem for women trainees in particular who become pregnant towards the end of their training only to realize that their PFL eligibility is affected as a result of receiving stipend rather than wages).
While a systemic solution is currently under consideration, departments should address the benefits inequity in the coming year through one or more of the following approaches:
1. Make every effort to maintain at least a 50% FTE on SHC payroll for every clinical trainee, including the utilization of inter-entity transfer mechanisms when using unrestricted SoM funding sources.
Structure the funding sources such that it remains possible for future trainees to maintain at least 50% effort on SHC payroll.
Pay for 100% of the trainee health insurance plans, rather than 70%, for dependent plans. This solution in particular must be a uniform policy within the department (i.e., where all trainees with dependents are treated the same). This can be up to approximately $400/month for a trainee with family in after-tax out-of-pocket expense that did not exist when the fellow was covered on the SHC plan.
OPA and GME are currently considering various solutions to the benefits issues. Cost considerations are taken into account, as well as a variety of logistical and legal concerns within Stanford and also with the insurance carriers.
Additional Information Regarding the Appointment Process of Clinical Fellows:
Rania Sanford, Ed.D.
Assistant Dean for Postdoctoral Affairs
1215 Welch Rd., Modular A, Room 86
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-5402
Tel: 650-725-5075
Email: raniasanford@stanford.edu
Web: http://postdocs.stanford.edu