Even though you derive a lot of satisfaction from professional practice, your responsibilities or interests outside of work may be such that you would welcome extended periods of time off—even without pay, as long as your benefits and computed length of service would continue uninterrupted.

Our Voluntary Seasonal Option Program is for you if you are a full-time employee.

Over the course of a year many departments throughout Methodist Healthcare experience fluctuating levels of activity. For these departments, certain seasons or times are busier, others less so. Methodist provides these departments with the Voluntary Seasonal Option Program as a way to facilitate season-specific, flexible staffing.

The objective is to assure that at every time of year, whether peak season or slow, each department will be staffed to the level appropriate to actual needs. The Voluntary Seasonal Option Program helps departments wisely manage their staffing budgets, in turn helping control healthcare costs generally.

First of all, it’s called an Option Program for a reason. It’s optional. It’s there for you—if it’s right for you.

You would be given a time-off period (termed a hiatus period) that would be based on the projected, yearlong staffing needs of your department or unit. The length and time of year this hiatus period will occupy will vary by department and may even vary by year. The minimum length of hiatus would be one month and the maximum length will be six months.

A hiatus period may not need to be taken as one single bloc of time; instead, your department may be able to divide it into two or more periods throughout the year.

Even though it would be time off, your hiatus will be counted as 100% continuation of your employment. In other words, the time you are off gets calculated, fully, toward all relevant benefits in your Methodist Healthcare benefits plan. The days, weeks or months you take as hiatus fully apply to your accrual of vacation time, for example, just as if you had been actually coming into work.

Whatever benefits you have already accrued at the time you take your hiatus remain in place throughout y our hiatus and upon your return. That includes medical/dental coverage and all others. Additionally, your hiatus time will be calculated as work time toward the accrual of those benefits that are calculated according to an employee’s length of service.

As you know, some Methodist Healthcare benefits require premium payments from you. During your hiatus, those benefit premiums may be collected in one of the following two ways: · You may opt to make regular premium payments during your hiatus period. These payments will be post tax and collected on a biweekly (every other week) basis. · Or you may elect to have payroll deductions from the four paychecks prior to your hiatus. This will cover premiums that will be missed during the hiatus period. These deductions will be prorated.

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