Passed my CCRN in March. Studied for four months, paid for the exam myself, and the certification differential turns out to be 50 cents an hour. Fifty cents. That's like a thousand bucks a year before taxes.
My friend at the hospital across town gets $2 an hour for the same cert, and they reimbursed her exam fee.
Is 50 cents normal and I'm being dramatic, or is my place just cheap? What does your hospital pay for certs? Trying to decide if I bring this up at my eval or just shut up and enjoy the letters after my name.
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Post replyMeanwhile admin will put your certification count on the Magnet application and act like they built it themselves. They love saying they value certified nurses until it's time to pay for it.
Got my CCRN in 2019 and our differential was zero. They put my name on a plaque in the break room and called it recognition. Two years later I took a job 20 minutes away that paid $1.75 for it plus a clinical ladder bump. The letters ended up being worth more on my resume than they ever were on my paycheck at the old place.
Is the 50 cents only on worked hours, or does it apply to PTO too? Ours only counts productive hours, so it's even less than it looks on paper.
Bring it up at your eval, but bring numbers. Print what the hospital across town pays and what your exam cost, and ask if they'll at least reimburse the fee retroactively. Our unit got the differential bumped from $1 to $1.50 because three of us brought the same comparison to our manager in the same month.
Honestly 50 cents isn't that unusual. Plenty of places pay a flat annual bonus instead, and some pay nothing at all. Your friend's hospital is on the generous end. Still worth bringing up, but don't walk in acting like you've been robbed or they'll tune you out.
Same. 75 cents here and they make you re-verify every year with a form that HR loses at least once.