Travel nurse agencies cash in on Stanford strike and pandemic

“Turn Your Nursing Enthusiasm into Gain. Get hold of Us Right now!”

The recruitment plea from an work company referred to as HSG Strike Staffing was a single of quite a few that attracted thousands of alternative nurses to fill positions still left empty this 7 days by the first nursing strike at Stanford Healthcare facility in two a long time. Crossing the picket traces arrives with the guarantee of up to $13,000 a 7 days in income in addition cost-free food stuff, housing and transportation. And the staffing agencies that retain the services of them, increasingly owned by private fairness firms, are reporting report income.

The traveling nurses market, fueled by labor unrest and the COVID-19 pandemic, has turned healthcare facility staffing into a nationwide bidding war, with wellness treatment services paying out outdoors businesses exorbitant charges to protected aid.

This development is developing a highly-priced vicious cycle, say industry experts, as nurses leave their longtime personnel work for the non permanent but a lot more lucrative “travel nurse” positions — worsening hospitals’ labor scarcity, escalating wages and creating rapid turnover, which worsens nursing morale.

The lack means that all hospitals are competing for the similar nurses, claimed health and fitness economist Joanne Spetz, professor at UC San Francisco’s Institute for Wellbeing Coverage Scientific studies.

“Stanford simply cannot say, ‘Oh, well, I’m just going to borrow some nurses from, say, Valley Health-related Heart, since they almost certainly have extra,’ ” she stated.

Hospitals these kinds of as Stanford have lengthy relied on traveling nurses to fill gaps in staffing. But the pandemic induced a 20% boost in the volume of people coming for care, so far more nurses had been essential. Now, confronted by this week’s strike, Stanford signed 2,700 non permanent replacements for 5-day contracts to support fill 5,000 empty positions.

They ought to bankroll not only the substantially greater salaries supplied to the alternative nurses — but also a steep commission to the organizations that employ the service of and household them.

On Tuesday, the placing nurses remained on the picket line as leaders started the very first working day of negotiations in the early early morning. Union leaders and clinic officials were tight-lipped about the shut-doorway bargaining, but nurses say they are ready to strike indefinitely until finally a acceptable agreement is agreed upon.

Until finally then, Stanford will count on alternative nurses and administration to fill the hole. Ahead of a strike, organizations fly substitution nurses to their destination and shuttle them to work each individual early morning, exactly where they cross picket strains.

The approximated typical hourly level for strike nurses can reach $216.67, about 2.5 occasions the average hourly price of similar clinical nurses. They do not get advantages, these as health and fitness insurance coverage. By comparison, the ordinary hourly fee of a scientific nurse at Stanford ranges from $87 to 89.50.  Journey nurses are also paid much more than team nurses, while fewer than strike nurses.

The demand for journey nursing has exploded all through the pandemic, in accordance to a report in the journal Well being Affairs by George Washington College Faculty of Nursing professors Tony Yang and Diana Mason.

Amongst January 2020 and January 2022, the advertised shell out fee for vacation nurses jumped 67%,  documented Prolucent Well being, which offers healthcare workforce application and solutions. The organizations say they should shell out these charges to entice talent, but hospitals such as Stanford also ought to fork out hefty service fees to the companies as properly.

Well being care and elected officials argue that the nursing organizations are exploiting conditions to pad their have pockets. Past November, a team from Congress wrote a letter to the White Residence COVID-19 Reaction Team Coordinator, urging him to look into whether or not nurse staffing businesses ended up selling price gouging. The American Healthcare facility Association asserts that the businesses are “exploiting our organizations’ determined want for well being care personnel.”

About 75% of hospitals’ expense is for the nurse the companies keep 25% for revenue, in accordance to George Washington College wellness economist Yang, who research the field.

1 of the nation’s leading organizations, AMN Health care Products and services, described a 109% maximize in gross income in the fourth quarter of 2021, when compared to 2020, Yang claimed. Cross Country Health care, a different health and fitness treatment staffing company, noticed its revenue bounce 93% among the 3rd quarters of 2020 and 2021.

Meanwhile, personal-fairness companies are cashing in on the journey-nursing enterprise. Considering that the commencing of 2021, at minimum eight non-public-fairness firms have acquired at minimum seven staffing organizations.

State laws have been ineffective in combatting the increase of journey-deal nursing, according to the report by Yang and Mason. Potentially this is due to the fact cost gouging laws have traditionally used to products revenue and suppliers, not the selecting of momentary workforce and staffing organizations, they reported.

“Demand exceeds source,” explained Yang. “They can do this for the reason that they can get absent with it.”

Though high-priced, Stanford’s substitute nurses are extremely professional, stated Stanford chief nursing place of work Dale Beatty.

The agencies supply proof of licensure, expertise, skills, drug testing and regulatory demands, as perfectly as COVID-19 vaccination. Stanford evaluations all of these files, he mentioned.

“We have to go on to present and assistance our clients with the similar high high quality treatment and assure that they’re secure,” Beatty said.

“Certainly, the fees do worry us,” he said. “But our best priority has to be high-quality and client safety. When you are in a strike situation, we have to have the assets to treatment for our clients.”

On the Strike Nurse Facebook webpage, alternative nurses praised Stanford. “Best position to function,” wrote one particular nurse. “Great means and provides. Staff members quite welcoming to travelers there.”

The nurses flew into San Francisco Worldwide Airport late previous 7 days.  Just before starting, they were necessary to full a 16-hour online curriculum of Stanford’s expectations and a 12-hour teaching session, Beatty mentioned.

Upon arrival, every single nurse was reviewed one particular-on-one particular by Stanford staff members to make positive they were being a great match for their situation, he said.

“Sometimes we can have men and women that can arrive in to give vital care, but they may well not have a precise talent for within that population,” he said. “So we evaluate to see if they can make that adjustment. … We can definitely reassign them to yet another place.”

Even if the Stanford strike ends rapidly and the strike nurses go house, they’re already paid out.

“If you get on the plane,” just one nurse wrote on the Fb web page, “they gonna pay back you.”

Team Writer Aldo Toledo contributed to this report.