Employers in the hospice industry are frequently faced with wage and hour issues involving the Fair Labor Standards Act and North Carolina Wage and Hour Act, including provisions specifically pertaining to health care workers. Many of these issues can be confusing and troublesome.

First, employers must be aware of joint employment problems. Employees who work for more than one entity in a related family of companies may be eligible for overtime when aggregate hours for both entities exceed 40 in a workweek. Where the separate entities share common officers, policies, or benefits and are owned by a single parent company, the Department of Labor will treat both entities as joint employers for wage and hour purposes.

Hospice employers should also be aware that RNs are not automatically exempt from minimum wage and overtime requirements. RNs may qualify for the professional exemption if they are state certified and their work involves using advanced knowledge gained through a nursing course of study. Simply being an RN is not enough. Similarly, the exemption for employees practicing medicine is narrow. Professionals must be paid at least $455 per week to be exempt, but professionals who “practice medicine” need not be paid a salary. This exception to the salary rule does not cover pharmacists, nurses, therapists, dieticians, social workers, speech pathologists, or psychologists. Workers in those professions must be paid at least $455 per week to be exempt.

As a general rule, an exempt employee is entitled to his or her full salary, without deductions. If improper deductions are made, the employer can lose the exemption and have to pay the employee overtime. Deductions may be made for absences of one or more full days for personal, sick, or FMLA reasons, or for disciplinary suspensions. If deductions are made, the employer must comply with state law regarding the timing and form of notice to the employee.

Employers that require uniforms may not reduce a nonexempt employee’s pay below the minimum wage to reimburse the employer for the uniforms. If an employee is wearing the uniforms outside of work and causing damage requiring continual replacement of uniforms, the employer can require repayment through wage assignment or direct reimbursement.

Training and travel time is another area of confusion for many employers. Employers do not need to pay employees for their regular commutes, but most other travel time and training time must be paid. Exempt employees are not entitled to additional salary for required travel and training time. Non-exempt employees, however, must be paid for hours worked as discussed in the following paragraph.

Training. Lectures, meetings, and training sessions required by the employer must be paid. Training may be unpaid only if all the following requirements are met:

1. the training is voluntary;
2. it is not during normal working hours;
3. it is not directly job related; and
4. no work is required during the training

Employers should be aware of any overtime liability based on time spent by employees in training sessions. If an employee is staying overnight for training, an employer’s obligation to pay the employee ends once the training session is over and the employee is free to do what he or she wants. Time spent traveling to and from training sessions is treated the same as other travel time for work, and is subject to the following travel time rules.

Travel Time. Whether employee travel time is considered work time depends on the type of travel. An employee’s normal commute is not work time. If an employee is required to travel to another city for the day, but returns home the same day, the employer must pay the employee for the time spent traveling to the extent it exceeds the employee’s normal commuting time. Employee travel as part of his or her normal work, such as travel between job sites, must be counted as hours worked. Time spent by an employee traveling out of town for work must be paid when it includes the hours normally worked by an employee, even if the travel is on a day the employee would not normally work.

These tips address only a few of the many wage and hour issues hospice employers may face. Additional information is available from the Department of Labor, and if you have specific questions about a wage issue, you should consult an attorney.