On Thursday, October 17, MNA nurses are taking their concerns directly to management at Sanford hospitals. At Bagley, nurses are concerned they’re being asked to cover more patient assignments for each nurse and doctor. At Thief River Falls, nurses are concerned their own health insurance benefits are being cut. In Bemidji, nurses are concerned that untrained staff are monitoring patients on telemetry equipment.
Coming to the 109th Nurses Convention? Grab a great deal at the Minnesota Nurses Association Foundation Silent Auction. The 6th annual silent auction to benefit the MNAF includes original art, theater tickets, hotel stays, skin treatments, haircuts, and concert passes.
All of the money generated from the silent auction goes to the grants and scholarships awarded to nurses studying important health and wellness issues facing Minnesotans. In 2013, the MNAF awarded $91,000.00 total to 37 recipients.
Here are some items:
Signed, limited-edition pen and ink illustration by Bill Hosko of the Hosko gallery
Two tickets to Ladysmith Black Mambazo at the Ordway
Two tickets to any performance at the Guthrie Theater
Relaxation session with Laurie Phillips at Big Heart Coaching
Nurses at Essentia in Virginia showed up to bargaining session to voice displeasure at takeback proposals. More than 100 strong.
MNA nurses had gone through three negotiation sessions with Grace, the latest owners of the Kinnic Nursing Home in River Falls, Wisconsin. They last left the table with management trying to take away family leave language, leave of absence days, to radically limit time for jury duty, and even reduce days off for the death of a child or spouse.
MNA nurses looked like they were headed toward mediation to get a new contract, but then they started showing that nurses were standing together. Bobbi Spence, and Suzanne Kitzmann, LPNs and bargaining unit leaders, started handing out red wristbands to their fellow union members.. Even though the unit has only 14 nurses and are split over day/night shifts, nurses wore the wristbands all the time to make the spirit known.
“We had never done that before,” Bobbi said, “I don’t know what management thought but it was an eye opener for them.”
Nurses ended up negotiating an agreement that not only turned back all the takeback language but also more holidays off, more weekends off, and got more nurses eligible for holiday pay if they worked that day.
Nurses voted overwhelmingly to ratify the agreement.
Nurses walked around the Mayo’s Mankato facility for 12 hours to let patients know they’re worried that staffing levels have put them at risk.
Back in 2008, a lot of working folks planning for retirement saw their savings dwindle. Some saw their net worth spiral downward pretty quickly. For example, someone who had to invest in a 401(k) retirement fund opened statements to see that a savings of $10,000 had dwindled to $7,000. Those that could wait have been riding out their disappointment (as well as not opening their retirement savings notices anymore). Only now, five years later, are they starting to see their nest egg return to its pre-recession figures. Of course, anyone who needed to retire in 2008 had to cash out for pennies on the dollar.
Nurses listening to the latest figures on their pension fund.
Nurses, who are vested in the Twin Cities Hospitals-MNA pension, (or worked for Hennepin County Medical Center or the State of Minnesota) didn’t have to worry. Their retirement benefits continued at the amounts they had earned while their employer had to pay up to ensure the solvency of the pension fund account. The risk was and still is on their employer to maintain the success of the fund that will pay them through a nurse’s golden years.
At an MNA pension workshop presented by MNA staff on Tuesday, Twin Cities’ MNA nurses learned that their pension fund is alive and well. Auditors looked hard at the fund and found three key attributes found in not very many other retirement funds (including other pensions).
In addition, pension plan assets are up as of the end of the year 2012, and that means that benefit payments as a percent of contributions are down. That’s good news for the sustainability of the plan.
Nurses become vested in the pension plan after working five years with at least 1000 hours of service, which means a new nursing graduate could guarantee him or herself a pension benefit to retire on in just five years. That’s even if they end their nursing career soon after that.
Nurses filled the room to hear about why they should protect their pensions.
Because no one can outlive their pension benefits, the total worth of their retirement benefits will be more. For example, nurses who live 18 years beyond their actuarial life expectancy will see the worth of their lifetime payments double since they began receiving benefit payments. Retirees living longer on 401(k) proceeds will have to figure out how to stretch their dollars as their net worth will become stagnant.
The nurses’ pension plan is a gold mine in a valley that’s been dug by a lot of prospectors. Nurses should feel safe that their mine will keep paying off while others will be digging for security.
For the second time this month, financial experts are predicting a tough year ahead for the non-profit hospital industry. First, Standard & Poor’s rating services analyst said profit ratios will be down in 2013 (link here) Now, Moody’s Investors Service is saying expenses outpaced revenue last year as patient revenue slipped by half a percent (found here). What’s more, both reports say that efficiencies in hospital business were actualized last year and won’t produce any more savings in the future. In other words, hospitals got lean and can’t get leaner.
Add to that the paralyzing fear many hospital CEOs are feeling over the effects of the Affordable Care Act, reduced payments from many insurance companies (such as Blue Cross/Blue Shield), and reduced government dollars for patients who are readmitted. Combine them all, and it might seem that some hospital administrators are facing a vampire, a werewolf, and a mummy in a dark graveyard.
Well, maybe not. As S&P’s analyst also reports, hospital revenue has been buoyed by their investment income. Savings is paying what patients are not. Moody’s also reports that revenue from patients is still up, not down. Nobody’s growing broke, and hospitals keep seeing more and more patients.
Perhaps the best thermometer of hospital financial wellness was alluded to the Chief Health Care Officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges. JoAnne Conroy, MD, asked if hospitals would just stop advertising (link here). She cites the New York Times report that advertising by hospitals is 20 percent higher this year than in 2010. Hospitals have spent more than $717 million in advertising just in the first half of 2013. That’s a raise of 7 percent per year that hospitals gave to their ad firms, not their nurses. Conroy estimates that each hospital spends between $1-$6 million each year in ads. We know that some of those ads, including some Twin Cities billboards, are often written off as “charity care.”
This comes at a time when Minnesota hospitals have to start being more transparent and reporting their staffing levels to the state and to the consumer. For those hospitals that maintain safe and effective staffing, that’s a great selling point, and it’s free. In fact, if hospitals were to re-invest their marketing dollars into their programs, the results in patient outcomes would sell themselves.
Rep. Joe Atkins (DFL-Inver Grove Heights)
Ok, in a few short weeks, Minnesotans and Wisconites will have an answer to the question of which state has the better football team, but the debate over which state has a better jobs and overall business climate is already ongoing.
Credit Minnesota representative Joe Atkins with trying to answer this question definitively. Atkins said the discussion has contained far too much exaggeration on both sides of the border, and he convened a hearing of the House Commerce and Consumer Protection, Finance, and Policy Committee.
The facts are, Minnesota’s jobless rate is 5.3 percent, Wisconsin’s is 7.1 percent (source). Minnesota has more Fortune 500 companies, and more tech companies are moving to the state as well, including on-line photo service, Shutterfly, (source). Minnesota agreed to expand Medicaid expansion and grow the number of people covered by some type of i
nsurance. Wisconsin has not.
Those last two facts are important, given all the hyperbole of business taxes sending jobs and contracts over the St. Croix. Atkins called on Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) to report on the efforts to lure new companies to Minnesota. DEED’s testifiers said they’re busier than ever, and the latest funding measures in education are a great asset to lure out-of-state companies to Minnesota. DEED reports the Minnesota’s upside far outweighs any perceived downside of higher taxes. “Taxes don’t tell the whole story,” DEED reported.
At least Atkins is getting the whole story. If voters are just listening to fear-mongers, they may not.
Congressman Keith Ellison hosts a forum on the Affordable Care Act
Congressman Keith Ellison invites you to a meeting to discuss the Affordable Care Act
THE NEW FEDERAL HEALTH CARE LAW:
HOW IT WILL AFFECT YOU
Learn how the Affordable Care Act may affect you and your family, how to navigate the Minnesota Health Insurance Exchange and benefit from the new law. Congressman Ellison will be joined by MNsure & Rep. Debra Hilstrom
Wednesday – September 4, 2013
6:00 – 8:00 PM
Brooklyn Center High School
6500 Humboldt Avenue North, Brooklyn Center, MN 55430
If you have any questions about this event, please call (612) 522-1212.
Minnesota nurses are staffing the State Fair again to speak to the same people they care for every day. Patients in Minnesota are at risk, and their safety stands to improve if they’re know how their hospitals are measuring up. Thanks to the work nurses did during the last legislative session, consumers will have more information before deciding where to go for care, and, once they access that, they’ll see the real situation of safety in hospitals.
Nurses are reminding fairgoers that they already have a website where they can check hospital quality for a number of different outcomes. Patients are encouraged to learn that, very soon, they’ll be able to look at the various staffing levels for hospitals in Minnesota. Researchers at the Minnesota Department of Health are also anxious to see this data as they compile a report on the connection between patient outcomes and hospital staffing.
Consumers who are unaware of staffing issues at their local hospital can also learn about resources where they can learn more. They can start by going to safepatientstandard.com
Nurses are handing out rulers that ask consumers if their local hospital measures up and carries the QR code to the safe patient standard website.
Most importantly though, the State Fair is a chance for Minnesotans to hear from nurses how they cope with short staffing issues, why nurses constantly worry about their patient’s safety, and what is and isn’t being done about it in the hospitals in the state. Minnesotans deserve to know how their hospitals are doing. It’ll be an education on a stick.
