Hospitals and medical centers across the country use time rounding, automatic meal break deductions, and off-the-clock work demands that quietly strip nurses, CNAs, medical assistants, technicians, and call center workers of wages they legally earned.
Time rounding seems technical, but the impact is simple: your employer records fewer minutes than you actually worked and pays you accordingly. Multiplied across every shift and every pay period, even small rounding differences add up to hundreds — or thousands — of dollars per year.
Many hospitals use timekeeping systems that don't record your exact clock-in and clock-out times. Instead, they round your time to the nearest quarter-hour or some other interval. Under federal law, rounding is only lawful if it balances out over time — sometimes favoring the employee, sometimes the employer. When a hospital's system consistently rounds in the employer's favor, that is an illegal payroll practice.
In practice, hospital payroll systems are often configured so that clocking in early gets rounded forward — you lose those minutes — and clocking out late gets rounded backward — you lose those minutes too. The rounding never works in your favor, only theirs. Even a few minutes per shift, multiplied across hundreds of employees over months or years, adds up to an enormous amount of stolen wages.
Every hourly healthcare role comes with its own patterns of wage theft. Here's what workers in your position commonly experience — and what the law says you are owed.
Federal and state wage laws provide meaningful remedies for workers who have been underpaid. You may be entitled to far more than just the wages you were shorted.
Every minute of compensable work time that was rounded away, deducted without basis, or performed off the clock must be paid at your regular rate — plus time-and-a-half for any hours that should have pushed you over 40 in a workweek.
Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, employees who prevail in wage claims are potentially entitled to an additional equal amount in liquidated damages — effectively doubling your recovery.
Willful FLSA violations extend the lookback period to three years. State law claims may reach further, depending on where you work. For example, California law looks back up to four years, while New York and New Jersey law looks back up to six years.
The FLSA requires employers who lose wage cases to pay your legal fees and court costs. You pay nothing out of pocket — regardless of the outcome of your case.
When many employees at the same hospital experience the same violations, we can pursue collective or class actions that benefit all affected workers simultaneously — and maximize leverage against the employer.
We handle wage and hour class and collective actions exclusively on behalf of employees — never employers. Your case is our only side.
We advance all costs and our fees come only from a recovery on your behalf. You will never receive a bill from us — win or lose.
Since 1999, Shavitz Law Group has focused exclusively on workers' wage rights — in healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and beyond.
We have never represented an employer in a wage case. Our sole focus is making sure workers receive every dollar they earned.
A free, confidential case review costs nothing and commits you to nothing. Tell us about your situation and we'll tell you honestly whether you have a claim.