Author: Joel Schofer, MD, MBA, CPE
Why Board Certification and Other Pays Probably Will Not Increase Until FY22
I have received a lot of questions about why Board Certification Pay and potentially other pays will probably not increase until FY22. The short answer is below, and I need to point out that all the services are saying the same thing right now, for the reasons spelled out below. The Navy is not unique here.
The pay plan is essentially a continuous evolution. As soon as the FY21 plan is signed (which just happened), the planning for the FY22 plan begins. The services’ play plans are based on the DoD pay plan. For example, in FY21 the DoD plan was worked on for months and then signed on 27 AUG 2020. Then months of planning began on the Navy pay plan. Each service has the latitude to pay “up to” the maximum pays that the DoD plan sets. In other words, just because NDAA 21 raised maximum pays, this doesn’t mean that the services are going to automatically pay them. In other words, now that NDAA 21 was just passed, it will take time for DoD and then the services to adjust the pay plans. This will likely happen with the FY22 plan. Could it happen sooner than FY22? I supposed anything is possible, but the pay planning and budgeting processes are not quick.
In the MC Chief’s Office, we advocate extensively for maximum pays whenever possible, and that is part of the reason why the pay plan has taken so long to come out the last 2 years. We will continue to advocate the best we can for maximal pays.
Finance Friday Articles
Here are this week’s articles:
- 10 Financial Goals for 2021
- Best Investments for Doctors
- Do Nothing, Do Well
- Drawdowns & Melt-Ups: The Year That Was in the Markets
- Monitoring your risk level & rebalancing
- The 3 best ways to estimate your home value (aka: How I “lost” $1 million overnight)
- Track Your Financial Goals with These Four Measurements
- Updated Trinity Study for 2021 – More Withdrawal Rates!
- Updating My Favorite Performance Chart For 2020
- Why I’ve Changed My Mind on Bitcoin
Throwback Thursday Classic Post – What is a “Don’t Pick Me” Promotion Board Letter? Why Would You Send One?
If you go to the Navy Active Duty Officer Promotions Page, you’ll find this at the bottom:
Sample “Don’t Pick Me” Letter to the Board
Removing the introductory portion, here is what the meat of this letter says:
1. Per reference (a), please remove my record from consideration by the FY-XX Active Duty (Grade) (Competitive Category) Selection Board.
That’s it. All it says to the promotion board is, “Don’t pick me.”
Why would or should a physician send a letter requesting NOT to be considered by a promotion board? Here are a few reasons:
- You know that you are resigning and will not be joining the Reserves – If you are just paying your time back and getting out, do your fellow officers a favor and remove yourself from consideration. It is hard enough to promote nowadays. Having one less person to compete with helps out those who are willing to stick around. Yes, if you are picked and get promoted soon enough you could get some extra pay for a little while before you resign, but I’d say the general karma of letting someone else get the promotion outweighs that small financial benefit.
- You are an O4 or O5 who is retiring but you know that if selected for promotion you won’t accept it – Why would someone not accept a promotion? Because a promotion to O5 or O6 obligates you for 3 more years if you intend to retire. And the Navy still isn’t letting anyone get out early. If you want to get out as fast as possible with a 20 year retirement, taking a promotion to O6 in year 18 means you must stick around until year 21 at least.
So…if #1 or #2 above are applicable, consider sending a “Don’t Pick Me” letter. And remember, they are now due 10 days before a board convenes (not 24 hours like before).
Faculty Application for Operation Bushmaster Spring 2021
Here is the e-mail for those interested:
Good afternoon everyone – and happy new year!
It is finally time to recruit faculty for Spring Bushmaster at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania – this pandemic-friendly version will replace our postponed October 2020 activity. Things will look very different this year – please keep reading to see what is new, what we need and learn how you can participate. Please reply before 20 January 2021.
Concept for 2021:
This year, our students will be in the field for 48 hours in small squads (~ 8 students/squad). They will remain in the field for 9 total leadership cycles, each serving as the Platoon Leader, Surgeon and Ambulance Team Leader. The assigned faculty will remain with the students for the entire 48 hour period. A small group of first year medical students (~7 students) will be attached to each squad and role play all of the patients for the 48 hour period. This version is designed to isolate each group of students and avoid mixing of students and faculty between groups. There will be 6 squads in the field during each iteration, for a total of 24 student squads during Bushmaster.
Dates: Students will begin at 1200 on Day 1 (faculty must arrive by 1000) and will finish at 1200 on Day 3.
Iteration 1: 28 April – 30 April
Iteration 2: 30 April – 2 May
Iteration 3: 2 May – 4 May
Iteration 4: 4 May – 6 May
**Because there is limited downtime in this schedule, I do not recommend that any faculty work consecutive iterations. The schedule allows off-time from 2230 until operations begin at 0600 the following morning. I am happy to have folks work Iteration 1 & 3 or Iteration 2 & 4 with a rest day in between
New this year:
– 4 faculty members per student squad (Leadership, Surgeon, Ambulance Team Leader, Casualty Coach)
– Faculty will sleep in the field, MREs, latrines, no faculty turnover/off-time
– Iterations will last for 48 hours (with sleep time built in for 2 nights)
– Iterations will begin on Day 1 at noon and end on Day 3 at noon. Faculty will report to Fort Indiantown Gap by 1000 on Day 1.
– 1 faculty member will support the MS1 role players (7-8 students portraying all patients)
– There will be no in-person village visit, vehicle movements, large MASCAL
– There will be no moulage tent – role players will apply small amounts of moulage to themselves; no shared application equipment
– No dedicated student roles of Preventive Medicine Officer or Behavioral Health Officer – these roles will be integrated into the Surgeon role- Faculty Training will occur remotely on 21 April 2021 using online videos and live discussions. It will last for one half day. Please plan to attend. Indicate your preference for timing on the Google Form when you apply.
COVID Mitigation Strategies:
– Student/faculty teams will remain intact – no new personnel in or out of the cohort
– All personnel will undergo COVID testing (at USU) before arrival at the field setting – details TBD
– All personnel will wear PPE during interactions within 6 feet of one another (gloves, face masks, eye protection)
– All shared equipment will be sanitized during each leadership cycle (3-4 hour period). Students will sanitize and reset their equipment for the next group.
– Personnel who are at high risk of complications from COVID should consider skipping Bushmaster this spring
– To reduce the need for commercial travel, we prefer faculty who can travel from driving distance of Pennsylvania. If you reside outside of this area but would still like to participate, please apply anyway (I do not know if we have enough faculty in the local area)
– While we are hopeful that the majority of participants and support personnel at Spring Bushmaster will be vaccinated against COVID-19 before April 2021, vaccination status will not change the COVID mitigation strategies outlined above.
If you are interested in applying to serve as a faculty member this year – please sign up via this Google Form:
Operation Bushmaster Faculty Application Spring 2021
Please respond before 20 January 2021.
Finally – mark your calendars for our regularly scheduled Bushmaster in October (9-13 October 2021 and 18-22 October 2021). Please feel free to forward this email to your colleagues who would serve well as Bushmaster faculty. Also, if you would like me to remove you from my mailing list, please let me know.
Thank you all for your support of Operation Bushmaster – particularly in our new format.
Wishing you all well in 2021,
Leslie
Leslie Vojta, MD, FACEP
Lt Col, USAF, MC
Emergency Medicine Clerkship Director
Operation Bushmaster (MFP202) Academic Director
Department of Military and Emergency Medicine
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
State of the Blog in 2021
Here is the annual blog post detailing the state of the blog in 2021.
Financial Report
Blog Profit = $135 loss!
As you probably realize, I pay for this and make no money from it.
Blog Traffic
As of 1/1/21, we have just over 740,000 page views. Here is the blog traffic as measured by page views since I started it in 2015. See a pattern? In 2020, we topped out at over 275,000 views.
I get most referred traffic from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and the StudentDoctor.net forum, in that order. The distant 5th is a link to my bog from PhysicianOnFire.com.
Top Posts of 2020
Here are the top 5 posts/pages of 2020, excluding promotion board results or anything which is clearly old news:
- Special Pays Update – Senate Proposal to Increase Pays and BUMED Pays Update
- The New Medical Corps Career Progression Slide – What Does It Mean to You?
- NAVNORTH FRAGO Summary Graphics
- FY22 Promotion Boards – What are They Looking At and How Can You Get Ready? (actually, it was the FY21 version, but since I’ve updated it for FY22 it makes no sense to link to the old one)
- New Navy HPSP FAQ and Information Booklet
Top 10 Posts/Pages of All Time
Here are the top 5 since 2015:
- Joel Schofer’s Promo Prep
- Useful Documents
- LCDR Fitreps – Language for Writing Your Block 41
- Joel Schofer’s Fitrep Prep
- Useful Links
- CV, Military Bio, and Letter of Intent Templates
- POM20 Navy Medicine Billet Reduction
- Personal Finance
- About Me (who knew I was so popular?)
- What are AQDs and How Do You Get Them?
Most Common Misspellings of My Last Name
I can actually see the things people search for that lead them to the blog, so what are the most common misspellings of my last name, which is “Schofer”:
- Shofer
- Schoeffer
- Schoefer
That’s it! Thanks for reading in 2020 and for all the things you’ll probably read in 2021.
FY21 Special Pays Plan and NDAA 21 Pay Increases
The FY21 special pays NAVADMIN is out. You can read it at this link.
That said, what you really want is the Corps specific plans. I sent them to the Specialty Leaders and other senior MC leadership earlier today via e-mail, and they will be posted on the BUMED Special Pays site as soon as possible. It is a fine line I have to walk sometimes deciding what I can or cannot post on the blog, and I just don’t think I can post them here until they are on the BUMED site. Sorry, but that’s the way I feel.
Many have also noticed that NDAA 21 increased some maximum special pays. Because the FY21 DoD and Navy plans were already signed before the NDAA veto override and neither included any of these pay increases, the new maximum amounts will be considered for the FY22 pay plan. In other words, as of now your Board Certified Pay is not going to increase from $6K per year to $15K per year. That could change at some point in the future, but that is the answer I’m getting at BUMED as of now.
Joel Schofer's Career Planning Blog 