(e)
(1) A nurse performing officially ordered or approved hours of service in excess of 40 hours in an administrative workweek, or in excess of eight consecutive hours, shall receive overtime pay for each hour of such additional service. The overtime rates shall be one and one-half times such nurse’s hourly rate of basic pay.
(2) For the purposes of this subsection, overtime must be of at least 15 minutes duration in a day to be creditable for overtime pay.
(3) Compensatory time off in lieu of pay for service performed under the provisions of this subsection shall not be permitted, except as voluntarily requested in writing by the nurse in question.
(4) Any excess service performed under this subsection on a day when service was not scheduled for such nurse, or for which such nurse is required to return to the nurse’s place of employment, shall be deemed to be a minimum of two hours in duration.
(5)
For the purposes of this subsection, the period of a nurse’s officially ordered or approved travel away from such nurse’s duty station may not be considered to be hours of service unless—
(A) such travel occurs during such nurse’s period of service; or
(B)
(i) involves the performance of services while traveling,
(ii) is incident to travel that involves the performance of services while traveling,
(iii) is carried out under arduous conditions as determined by the Secretary, or
(iv) results from an event which could not be scheduled or controlled administratively.
(j)
(1) Notwithstanding any other provision of law and subject to paragraph (2), the Secretary may increase the rates of additional pay authorized under subsections (b) through (h) if the Secretary determines that it is necessary to do so in order to obtain or retain the services of nurses.
(2)
An increase under paragraph (1) in rates of additional pay—
(A) may be made at any specific Department health-care facility in order to provide nurses, or any category of nurses, at such facility additional pay in an amount competitive with, but not exceeding, the amount of the same type of pay that is paid to the same category of nurses at non-Federal health-care facilities in the same geographic area as such Department health-care facility (based upon a reasonably representative sampling of such non-Federal facilities); and
(B) may be made on a nationwide, local, or other geographic basis if the Secretary finds that such an increase is justified on the basis of a review of the need for such increase (based upon a reasonably representative sampling of non-Federal health-care facilities in the geographic area involved).
Prior Provisions
Provisions similar to those in this section were contained in section 4107(e) of this title prior to the repeal of that section as part of the complete revision of chapter 73 of this title by Pub. L. 102–40.
Amendments
2010—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 111–163, § 601(k)(1)(A), substituted “a full-time nurse or part-time nurse” for “a nurse”.
Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 111–163, § 601(k)(1)(B), struck out “on a tour of duty” after “performing service” and substituted “hour of such service” for “hour of service on such tour”, “at least four hours of such service” for “at least four hours of such tour”, and “less than four hours of such service” for “less than four hours of such tour”.
Subsec. (c). Pub. L. 111–163, § 601(k)(1)(C), struck out “on a tour of duty” after “performing service” and substituted “such service” for “service on such tour”.
Subsec. (e)(1). Pub. L. 111–163, § 601(k)(1)(D)(i), substituted “eight consecutive hours” for “eight hours in a day”.
Subsec. (e)(5)(A). Pub. L. 111–163, § 601(k)(1)(D)(ii), substituted “period of service” for “tour of duty”.
1994—Subsecs. (f), (g). Pub. L. 103–446, § 1201(e)(24), substituted “subsection (b), (c), (d), or (e)” for “subsections (b), (c), (d), or (e)”.
Subsec. (i)(3). Pub. L. 103–446, § 1201(g)(6), struck out “of title 5” before period at end.