Different nursing facilities have different approaches to paying their travel nurses. This depends on the negotiations and nurse discussions with the particular nursing agency to get them an assignment.
Nurses might work in the same hospital but with different pay. There is a concern about the travel nurse’s pay gap between different agencies as well as the bill rates set.
Congress Letter
The bipartisan letter from Congress was signed by hundreds of representatives to look into “price gouging” by some staffing agencies. This is to investigate if consumer protection laws have been violated.
“We are writing because of our concerns that certain nurse-staffing agencies are taking advantage of these difficult circumstances to increase their profits at the expense of patients and the hospitals that treat them,” the congressional letter reads.
The letter asked for an investigation into illegalities related to the ballooning wages said to have been caused by the staffing agencies.
What Travel Nurses’ Had To Say About This.
In a Reddit nurse group called Reddit-nurse-comments, nurses’ took to sharing their opinions with regards to the alleged cap on Travel Nurse Pay.
The debate, which started with a post that read, “Everyone here in this sub should be aware of large attempts in Congress right now to cap nurse (especially travel nurse) pay…as if that will fix our staffing issues,” elicited so many reactions from nurses across the social media platform.
“The mass migration to high-paying travel nursing will be the primary driver for increasing wages, improving working conditions and safe patient ratios for staff nurses, retaining travel nurses in the profession, and attracting new people to the field,” one nurse added.
“Yup, and I just talked with two travel nurses before I left work today, and if something like this passes, they said they’ll likely switch careers, maybe start a small business, but for sure leave the bedside for clinic work.”
Some nurses hinted that if the travel nurse pay cap came to pass, they would stage a walkout and consider changing careers. This definitely highlighted a severe nursing shortage.
One commented saying that Staffing Agencies were engaging in anti-competitive and unfair practices since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. “The most charitable reading here is they are least alleging that their issue is with the staffing agency’s cut, “We have received reports that the nurse staffing agencies are vastly inflating price, by two, three or more times pre-pandemic rates, and then taking 40% or more of the amount being charged to the hospitals for themselves in profits.” Do any of y’all know if the agency is charging the hospital 40% more than what you are receiving for your services?”
Constituents also sort to contact Congress to create a political influence that would get them heard. “We all know that wage caps are going to have a detrimental effect on staffing, forcing even more travel nurses to give up working at the bedside and further worsening the problem at hand,” the petition reads. “What about encouraging legislation to protect the safety and rights of nurses? What about legislation to nationalize safe nurse-to-patient ratios? What about legislation to set a fair, competitive minimum pay for nursing? Reach out to your elected officials and voice your concerns. There are many solutions out there, but this isn’t one of them.”
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