Queens Doctors Get 10.6% Hike in Pact

By HOWARD MEGDAL

Doctors Council, which represents the city's attending physicians, announced the ratification of contract agreements with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine's Queens Hospital and Elmhurst Hospital providing a better-than-10-percent raise over three years.

BARRY LIEBOWITZ: Will maintain high standards.

The 220 doctors at Queens and 130 at Elmhurst will receive a 3-percent increase retroactive to July 1, 2006, 3 percent on July 1, 2007 and 4.25 percent on July 1, 2008, for a compounded total of 10.6 percent, according to the union.

'One Voice, One Goal'

Doctors Council President Barry Liebowitz remarked, "Doctors at two separate hospitals on opposite ends of the borough came together in one bargaining process with one voice and one goal - to protect a high level of health care at Queens's two public hospitals."

Other facets of the agreement include a new minimum salary of $125,000 retroactive to July 1, a 15-percent increase in the first year for Department of Surgery doctors, an increase in overtime pay from $60 to $75 an hour, and a weekend differential pay of $400 per weekend day beginning with the fifth one in the Departments of Medicine, Ambulatory Care and Pediatrics, along with one paid off-day per month. Committees to deal with employee and patient-care issues were created.

Educational improvements include a jump from 10 to 12 days off for board certification exam prep, a guaranteed minimum of reimbursable expenses for continuing medical education, starting at $1,750 in the contract's first year and reaching $2,000 by year three, and an expanded definition of those expenses.

For doctors at Queens Hospital, paid vacation days increased to the levels at Elmhurst, with one additional per year after 5 years of service; 3 more after 10 years of service; 4 more after 15 years of service and a full week's added paid vacation after 25 years of service.