Unpaid documentation time: what to know and who to ask
How to measure unpaid documentation time, how to raise it, and who can advise you.
Unpaid documentation time is the time you spend on notes outside your paid hours, before a shift, after clocking out or at home. Twenty unpaid minutes a day, five days a week for 46 working weeks, adds up to 76.7 hours a year.
This guide sets out how to measure it, how to raise it, and who can advise you. Employment law differs by country, by state and by employment classification.
Start by measuring it
Two weeks of tracking gives you a figure to work from. Each day, record the minutes of documentation done outside paid hours. Note when they happened: before your shift, after clocking out, at home in the evening or at weekends. Keep it factual, with dates, times and the type of note.
For the twenty-minute example above, the sum is 20 × 5 × 46 ÷ 60 = 76.7 hours a year, close to two 40-hour weeks of unpaid work. The 46 weeks is an assumption that allows for leave and public holidays.
The documentation time calculator works this out from your own minutes and days, and shows what the unpaid hours are worth at your hourly rate. The real hourly rate calculator shows what the same hours do to your hourly pay if you are salaried.
Why off-the-clock documentation happens
It often starts with arithmetic. A productivity target may assume that most of the paid day is available for treatment. If documentation isn't counted as productive time, the minutes for notes have to come from somewhere. When the schedule is full, the only time left is outside paid hours.
That puts the cause in the schedule and the target. Treating it as a personal time-management problem moves the conversation away from that cause.
Is off-the-clock documentation hours worked?
In the US, the federal wage rules (the Fair Labor Standards Act) count work the employer didn't request but suffers or permits as work time. Notes you finish after clocking out, with your employer allowing it, fall under that rule.
US federal law sets an overtime rule for employees who aren't exempt. Their hours worked over 40 in a workweek must be paid at no less than one and a half times the regular rate.
Why "salaried" doesn't settle the question
In the US, being paid a salary doesn't by itself make you exempt from overtime. Therapists may qualify as exempt under the learned professional exemption. To qualify, they must meet its duties test and be paid on a salary basis of at least $684 a week.
Job titles don't decide exemption status, and physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech-language pathology are not named in the rule. A salaried therapist who doesn't meet both tests is non-exempt, and hours worked over 40 in a workweek earn overtime. Which category applies to you is a question for someone qualified.
Outside the US the rules differ by country. Working time regulations, contracted hours and collective agreements all vary, so the answer has to come from someone qualified where you work.
Deal with any backlog first
If you are carrying a documentation backlog, the clinical and compliance side comes before the pay side. A session written up five days later is reconstructed from memory, and late notes can cause problems in an audit.
Tell your supervisor about a backlog instead of working through it in silence. Reported early, it can be fixed before an audit finds it.
Raising unpaid documentation time with your employer
Keep it separate from the productivity conversation. The two are connected, but combining them lets both be treated as one general complaint. Unpaid working time is its own issue.
Bring the measured figure, and present it as a question for the department where you can. "My two weeks' tracking works out to 76.7 hours a year of documentation outside paid time. Is that the same for others in the department?" That invites a different response from "I am working unpaid".
Ask what the expectation is. If your employer says all work should happen within paid hours, ask for that answer in writing.
Propose a change to the schedule. Options include a protected documentation block, an adjusted target on evaluation days, a caseload change, or documenting at the point of service.
Who can advise you
This page can't advise you; these people can. Ask them if you believe you are working unpaid in a way that isn't lawful where you work.
- Your union representative, if you have one. They will know how your employer has handled this before.
- Your professional association. In the US, AOTA, APTA and ASHA are the national associations for occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech-language pathology. They have published a joint Consensus Statement on Clinical Judgment. It deals with productivity standards rather than pay. It warns that overriding clinical judgment through quotas or inappropriate productivity standards may violate payer rules or conflict with state licensure laws. Other countries have their own professional bodies.
- Your state or national labor authority. In the US that is the Department of Labor, which publishes the federal hours-worked rules above. Other countries have their own.
- An employment lawyer, if the situation is serious or you are considering formal action.
What to keep
Records made at the time are more precise than ones reconstructed later. Note the date, the start and end times, and the type of note, and leave patient details out. Keep the record somewhere of your own, with copies of any emails that set expectations about when documentation should be finished.
You may never need any of it, and it costs little to keep.
Raising it as a department
One clinician raising unpaid documentation time can be treated as having a personal efficiency issue. When several people in a department have measured the same thing, that is harder to do. Where there is a union, this is part of its job. Where there isn't, several clinicians can bring their measured figures to an internal discussion together.
General information only, not legal or employment advice. Your contract, your employer's policy and the law where you work decide what applies to you.