Daily Archives: January 7, 2015

01.07.15
by

Ask a Travel Nurse: What’s the best Travel Nursing company?

Share

Travel Nurse feet in the sand

Ask a Travel Nurse: What’s the best Travel Nursing company?

Ask a Travel Nurse Question:

I’m new to the idea of Travel Nursing and want to give it a try. But, there are so many companies — it blows my mind! What’s the best Travel Nursing company? Can you recommend a few good Travel Nursing companies for me to research and/or a recruiter, to get me started in the right direction?

Ask a Travel Nurse Answer:

I don’t endorse or recommend ”companies” per se, but rather, great people within those companies. I believe that having a great recruiter is a key element of having a good travel experience. I believe in this so much so, that one of the companies with which I travel, I would actually caution against, unless someone was working with the recruiter there with whom I have completed many an assignment and trust to take care of the issues that can arise, while on assignment.

If you call a company “cold” and ask to speak to someone, they will just pair you with the next available recruiter. It’s kind of “luck-of-the-draw” when you do that and you can work with the best travel company in the world, but if they pair you with a recruiter who only has a month on the job, how good an experience do you think you might have?

If you like, I can help get you paired up with the people I use and trust with my travels, but would need a bit more info from you. Can you tell me how many years nursing experience you have and how much of that experience is in the specialty in which you intend to travel?

After that, what works best for both my recruiters and I is to have you send me your best contact info (best email, if not this one, and best phone number where they might reach you).  I’ll forward your info to my recruiters and then email you the name of the person who will be contacting you, the company for which they work, and a little bio on the company. These people are the ONLY people who will receive any of your information.

I would also need to know any companies where you have spoken with a recruiter or even just contacted them and given them your information. The reason for this is because of the way that I refer nurses to my recruiters and not wanting to submit your name to a company at which you are already working with, or have been assigned a recruiter. I have had one or two instances where my recruiter didn’t first find the nurse I submitted in their system and started working with them only to discover that they were essentially “poaching” a nurse from another recruiter. Obviously, not a great position in which to put my recruiters. Please understand, I am not admonishing you for other nurses’ non-disclosure. It’s just that it’s problematic for my recruiters when people have not disclosed the companies with which they have already spoken.

Presently, there are five companies where I have established great contacts for my own travels. These people have also helped me get quite a few new travelers started in their careers. Most are medium sized companies (that give better customer service, but may not have all of the assignments that the “giants” do). However, I also have a really great recruiter at one of…if not, THE, largest travel company out there. This is one instance in which having a great recruiter is KEY.

I ALWAYS advise travelers to be on file with at least a handful of companies (after a decade and a half, I am still on file with six or seven). So many of the nurses join all the companies I refer them to, but usually find a favorite and do most of their traveling with that company. I am no different, but when I want to get to a location and my preferred company does not have any assignments in the area, I can always call two or three others and find what I want.

It’s also important for new travelers to be on file with multiple companies because some hospitals will even specify, “no first-time travelers”. So obviously, the more companies you are on file with, the more assignment opportunities you will have (not all companies have the same assignment selection).

Don’t be afraid to have several companies looking for you at once, but be courteous to your recruiters and let them know if you do take an assignment with anyone else (so they do not continue to spend their time seeking an assignment for you).

I’ll also pass on some sites that are good resources for travel nurses. Some good travel nurse forums can be found at ultimatenurse.com, allnurses.com, and the Delphi forum for traveling professionals (go to delphiforums.com, look for the box on the right that says “Explore existing forums”, type in “travel nursing” and the top result is a group called Travel Nurses and Therapists).

Pan Travelers is also another good site with a forum. They have a free section and also a portion where there is a charge to access information.

Healthcare Traveler Magazine has moved entirely online, but can be found at http://healthcaretraveler.modernmedicine.com/ where you can read current or back issues (I’ve written articles for them as well as a monthly column that you can find in past issues). You can also join Healthcare Travelbook (healthcaretravelbook.com), which is a sort of Facebook style place for travelers, which also has a forum.

While most travelers start with the companies that I use, if in your travels, you ever hear of another company that interests you, always check them out on the forums and see what other travelers may have to say about them. The amount of time they have been in business can be a consideration (not all “young” companies are bad, just as not all companies that have been in the business awhile will be good). Longevity just says that they have been doing this awhile and should have most of their ducks in a row (and it also means you should be able to find out more about them on the forums).

Also look and see if they have a Better Business Bureau rating. Not all companies are accredited by the BBB (most might not be) but even if a company is not accredited by the BBB, they may have a rating and you can see if anyone has ever filed a complaint against them.

Finally, I recommend simply typing the company name into a search browser with the word “complaint” or “review”. This sometimes yields some pretty interesting results.

So, if you send me your contact info (best email and phone number) and all the companies with which you have had contact, I’ll be happy to pass along your info and help get you started with some great people in the travel industry :-)

Hope this helps.

David
david@travelnursesbible.com

 

01.07.15
by

Might Your Workers Be Eligible For Medicaid? Start-Up Helps Employers Find Out

The Gold ‘N Silver Inn in Reno, Nev., has long offered health coverage to its employees — but many of the cooks, dishwashers and waiters who make close to minimum wage can’t afford the $100 monthly premium.

Last January, when Nevada became one of more than two dozen states to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, 10 of the diner’s 55 employees qualified for the government insurance program for low-income Americans.  None of them realized it, however, until the family-run restaurant hired BeneStream, a New York-based start-up funded partly by the Ford Foundation.

BeneStream uses software to quickly determine which employees are eligible for Medicaid, then helps those workers sign up for the state-federal health program that covers 70 million people.

The goal is to help employers and workers make the most of two key provisions of the health law — the Medicaid expansion that’s making millions of working adults eligible for Medicaid and the requirement that medium and large-sized employers provide coverage in 2015 or face a penalty.

“Most employers do not understand Medicaid and the eligibility requirements,” said BeneStream CEO Benjamin Geyerhahn. “We are a way to help employers manage this cost and resolve a big issue for their low-income workers.”

By enrolling in Medicaid, low-wage workers benefit from low- or no-cost health coverage since the program typically has no monthly premiums and few out-of-pocket costs. Employers benefit because they don’t have to pay a share of workers’ insurance premiums or risk incurring penalties.

BeneStream charges $40 to screen each employee for Medicaid and then $20 a month for each individual it helps get into the program.

While the idea of enrolling privately employed workers in government programs is not without controversy, it is legal, say experts.

“You are just helping people to get something they are entitled to,” said Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University and expert on the Affordable Care Act.

From a societal standpoint, however, it does raise questions about the fairness of having some employers provide health coverage to their employees, while others let the government pay for it.

“Is it a good thing if some employers insure their employees and some find ways to get the government to insure their employees?” Jost asked. “That’s a harder question.”

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, and several national fast food chains have faced criticism over the large numbers of their workers who turn to taxpayer-funded health care programs such as Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Some contend taxpayers are subsidizing the cost-cutting measures of private employers.

But Neil Trautwein, a vice president with the National Retail Federation, said that if workers and their families qualify for Medicaid and other government health programs, there is nothing wrong with having them sign up.

Employers must consider different strategies to meet the coverage mandate, he said.

“As companies are pressed by rising health coverage costs, and some will be taking it on for the first time, they will have to look at everything within their reach,” he said.

BeneStream officials say that in 2014, the company has helped over 1,500 workers at 82 firms enroll in Medicaid. It expects to sign up several times that many in 2015 as it expands from restaurants to home health and nursing homes.

This year, employers will have an even greater incentive to get workers covered when the Affordable Care Act requires those with more than 100 full-time workers to provide affordable coverage or pay a penalty of about $2,000 per worker, excluding the first 30 full-time workers. In 2016, employers with more than 50 workers will have to comply.  If workers are on Medicaid, the company is no longer on the hook for the penalty.

In November, the for-profit firm received a $1.5 million low-interest loan from the Ford Foundation to expand the company’s reach into the 27 states that have expanded Medicaid under the health law. The foundation has for years supported efforts to help eligible people receive public benefits.

“This is a great opportunity for low-income workers to receive the health security they deserve,” said Helen Neuborne, director of quality employment at the Ford Foundation.

Traditionally, most employers have done little to promote Medicaid to their workers—most likely because few would have qualified before the health law expansion.

A survey of 750 employers last year by consulting firm Mercer found just 4 percent of employers planned to provide information to employees about Medicaid.

“It’s not a big idea that most employers are thinking about,” said Tracy Watts, a senior partner in Mercer’s Washington, D.C., office.

Tammy Campbell, who handles human resources for Gold ‘N Silver restaurant, said BeneStream has saved the company money by getting 10 of its workers onto Medicaid who would otherwise have joined the company health plan or gone without coverage.

She said the process was easy. BeneStream’s representatives met with employees and had them fill out a questionnaire about household income and family size.

And the company benefitted in another way: “It’s nice to have employees show up healthy,” she said.

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