Daily Archives: October 24, 2014

10.24.14
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Ask a Travel Nurse: How can a new staffing agency get it right for Travel Nurses?

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Man has a question for a Travel Nurse

Ask a Travel Nurse: How can a new staffing agency get it right for Travel Nurses?

Ask a Travel Nurse Question:

I have opened a medical and allied healthcare specialist contract placement firm and want to make sure my travel section is offering the most attractive pay and service package for our candidates. How would you set up a new staffing agency for Travelers if you could, from scratch, and do it right?

Ask a Travel Nurse Answer:

The bottom line is, that you are never going to cater to every single Traveler out there. Some Travelers want to make absolute top dollar when it comes to their hourly rate, some care more about the destinations you offer, and some will want to see a well-rounded company that also provides good benefits and good housing. But again, you just cannot cater to every single Traveler out there.

I often tell nurses that one of the most important aspects of Travel Nursing is finding a good recruiter with whom to work. With this in mind, I would put my efforts into finding and hiring quality people to help give the nurses the highest possible customer service. Let’s face it, if you do not provide great customer service to Travel Nurses, there are literally hundreds of other companies with whom they can connect with a single phone call.

Many people write to me and asked me which company, or companies, are the best with whom to travel. My standard response is, that I do not recommend companies per se, but rather, great people within those companies. Therefore, I have never outright endorsed or recommended a travel “company.” But I do refer nurses to the recruiters with whom I work and entrust my travels.

Having never taken on much in regard to the other side of the coin (meaning the inner workings of a Travel Nurse company), I’m sure there are better people to guide you when it comes to the acquisition of destinations and contracting with different facilities or healthcare systems. However, I can tell you how I might start.

Your first step is going to be in growing the amount of contracts or locations that you offer. A nurse is going to want to travel with a company that provides a vast variety of locations and destinations. You then need to figure out your allocation (to the Travel Nurse) of the compensation that will be paid to you by the hospital.

Many hospitals have a blanket contract that they sign with every travel company. So if you are to receive $35,000 in compensation from a hospital, for a specific Travel Nurse’s contract, then your competition will likely receive the same compensation. Where you and the other company will differ, is in the allocation of those funds.

Only you can decide if you wish to be a company that offers the highest dollar amount in hourly rate (but then skimps on things like company provided housing or health insurance plans), or you wish to be a more well-rounded company opting for more allocation of funds toward health insurance and company provided housing, but then must offer the Travel Nurse a lower hourly rate than your competition might.

I will tell you that I do not envy your position as it does become hard to become a standout company when you do literally have hundreds of other competitors that are just a phone call away.

Again, I cannot stress enough how important your point of contact will be in attracting Travelers and retaining them. Hire and train quality recruiters that have patience and are willing to spend the time it takes to build good relationships with the nurses with whom you will work.

About six or seven years ago, the CEO of RN Network flew me out for a day, to evaluate the things that the company was offering to Travelers and ask my advice on everything from the benefits that they offered to their website design and advertising. It was actually a rather neat experience.

So, once you are up and running and have built a substantial base of assignments and locations, let me know if you would ever be interested in having someone come in and set up a training program for the recruiters that you will hire. Although I have not yet put together such a program, after my experience at RN Network, I have toyed with the idea of doing some consulting with the travel companies and lending them a perspective into what appeals to Travel Nurses.

I hope this has helped.

David
David@travelnursesbible.com

10.24.14
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Celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness Month

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Travel Nurse signs to celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Let’s Celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness Month!

With catchy slogans like “Save the Ta-Tas” and “Fight like a Girl,” the reason to celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness Month each October is all about knowledge as power. While there are many ways that people can promote, fundraise for, and celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness Month, it all comes down to one thing: Early detection. The best way to achieve that? Awareness!

According to the National Cancer Institute, “When breast cancer is detected early, in the localized stage, the 5-year survival rate is 98%.”

Here are some more facts about breast cancer, via the World Health Organization:

  • By a wide margin, it’s the most common cancer in women worldwide.
  • New cases each year = 1.39 million
  • Resulting deaths each year = 458,000
  • Early detection remains the “cornerstone of breast cancer control”!
  • Low- and middle-income countries account for the majority of deaths, due to less awareness and lack of and/or lack of access to health services — resulting in less early detection.

As a nurse, you are likely fully aware of the major benefits of early detection. And, in your line of work, you are in a unique position to spread the word and help raise awareness in others in a way that can have a major, positive impact. What’s more, because of your expertise, people are more likely to listen to you!

Here are some ways that you can foster and celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness Month:

  • Talk, talk, talk! Whether it’s in speaking with a patient or even making a post on social media, most people are more likely to take your advice — as a healthcare provider — to heart. Encourage self-exams, mammograms when appropriate, and healthy lifestyle choices — down with smoking and drinking to excess, and up with physical activity, whole foods, and weight control!
  • Share resources. Send people to sites like Beyond the Shock, which offers videos and other content that helps people learn about breast cancer, ask questions and get answers, benefit from others’ questions, hear stories from real people who have been affected by breast cancer, and more.
  • Let your clothes and accessories do the talking. Wearing breast cancer awareness scrubs, and other clothes and accessories, sends a message and supports the cause without you saying a word. Check out some of these great options from Tafford Uniforms. (Subscribe to Travel Nursing Blogs updates on our home page to get exclusive monthly discounts from Tafford!)

Finally, just continue being the great, supportive, awesome nurse that you are! Your presence when someone is facing tests or a breast cancer fight is immeasurably helpful. I know from personal experience — I will never forget the amazing nurse who helped me prepare for and get through on the day of the breast biopsy I had to have in 2013. (No cancer was found, thankfully.) I am forever grateful to that fantastic nurse who helped me keep it together on one of the scariest days of my life — and also to all of you wonderful nurses as we celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness Month!

10.24.14
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Family Doctors Push For A Bigger Piece Of The Health Care Pie

Family medicine doctors are joining forces to win a bigger role in health care – and be paid for it.

Eight family-physician-related groups, including the American Academy of Family Physicians, have formed Family Medicine for America’s Health, a coalition to sweeten the public perception of what they do and advance their interests through state and federal policies.

The launch of their five-year, $20 million campaign Thursday comes at a critical time for primary-care doctors. Thanks to the health law, millions more people can seek care with newly gained insurance.  But there’s growing debate about whether nurse practitioners and physician assistants should provide a lot more basic care, either on their own or as part of clinics sponsored by pharmacies or other businesses. Some major doctor groups have challenged the ability of lesser-trained medical professionals to independently treat patients.

Glen Stream, chairman of the new coalition, said that it plans to focus on:

– Paying primary-care doctors for more than just office visits, including the time they spend making referrals to specialists, checking in with patients about treatment regimens, being available 24/7 and calling and emailing patients. Specialty doctors generally are paid more for their time and for procedures they do.

– Creating additional incentives for medical school students to go into primary care and tying medical schools’ federal funding to the primary care training they provide.

– Making electronic health records less burdensome, freeing more time for conversation with patients.

– Getting doctors to switch to a team-based, patient-centered “medical home” format, with a payment structure that reflects the work that goes into coordinating care for a patient.

– Persuading private and public employers with health plans to lean on insurers to increase compensation for primary care services.

“If we don’t spend enough on primary care, outcomes in the future will suffer because much of the chronic diseases that drive spending are preventable,” said Stream, a family physician and former president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. He added that larger employers could negotiate higher payment rates for primary care when picking an insurance company.

While the campaign is touted as helping patients, it’s also about asserting that family doctors are important.

“It’s always a question of what motivates groups to do these kind of campaigns — is it looking out for patients or your own interests, and generally it’s a combination of both,” said Atul Grover, chief public policy officer at the Association of American Medical Colleges.

In September, the American Academy of Family Physicians announced recommendations on medical school funding, saying teaching hospitals should provide more primary care training as a condition of continuing federal funding at the same level. But Grover said the kind of training medical students receive doesn’t drive what type of doctor they become. The reimbursement system – which typically pays specialists at higher rates – is more important.

Grover also said that while primary care is important, taking funding away from specialty training isn’t necessarily a solution because an aging population will need more specialty care.

Other groups in the coalition are the American Academy of Family Physicians Foundation, American Board of Family Medicine, American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians, Association of Departments of Family Medicine, Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors, the North American Primary Care Research Group and the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

10.24.14
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Forget Ebola And Get A Free Flu Shot

Take a break from worrying about Ebola and get a flu shot this fall. While the Ebola virus has so far affected just four people in the United States, tens of millions are expected to get influenza this season. More than 200,000 of them will be hospitalized and up to 49,000 will likely die from it, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A new HuffPost/YouGov poll of 1,000 adults found that the flu is perceived as only slightly more threatening than the Ebola virus, however. Forty-five percent of people polled said that the flu posed a bigger threat to Americans than Ebola, but a substantial 40 percent said it was the other way around. Fifteen percent said they weren’t sure.

“Ebola is new, mysterious, exotic, highly fatal and strange, and people don’t have a sense of control over it,” says William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious disease at Vanderbilt University.

Influenza, on the other hand, is a familiar illness that people often think they can easily control, Schaffner says. “They think, ‘I could get vaccinated, I could wash my hands’ and prevent it.”

Yet that familiarity may lead to complacency. Flu shots are recommended for just about everyone over six months of age, but less than half of people get vaccinated each year.

Now there’s even more reason to get a shot. The health law requires most health plans to cover a range of preventive benefits at no cost to consumers, including recommended vaccines. The flu shot is one of them. (The only exception is for plans that have been grandfathered under the law.)

The provision making the vaccine available with no out-of-pocket expense is limited to services delivered by a health care provider that is part of the insurer’s network.

Depending on the plan, that could include doctors’ offices, pharmacies or other outlets.

Medicare also covers flu shots without patient cost sharing.

Please contact Kaiser Health News to send comments or ideas for future topics for the Insuring Your Health column.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.