First few Article Sentences
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires employers to pay certain workers at least minimum wage for all hours worked, in addition to overtime at the rate of one and one-half the employee's regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours per workweek.1 Under the FLSA, a workweek is a fixed period of seven days, but is not required to be the same as the calendar week. Employers in the healthcare industry, however, may be eligible to use a different method for payment of wages and still comply with the FLSA. What is commonly known as the "8 and 80 system" extends the overtime requirement over a 14-day period, as opposed to a seven day period. Since hospitals and other healthcare facilities never close, use of the 8 and 80 exception to FLSA's overtime rules give employers staffing flexibility, without incurring overtime.