Daily Archives: July 2, 2015

07.02.15
by

Ask a Travel Nurse: What are some Travel Nurse friendly facilities in Florida?

Share

Ask a Travel Nurse: What are some Travel Nurse friendly facilities in Florida?

Ask a Travel Nurse: What are some Travel Nurse friendly facilities in Florida?

Ask a Travel Nurse Question:

Hi David, I’m thinking taking an assignment in the Sunshine State. What are some Travel Nurse friendly facilities in Florida?

Ask a Travel Nurse Answer:

Hey there, it’s really hard to answer your question in that:

  1. Florida is a really large state (there could be hundreds of facilities that welcome Travelers)
  2. I have not had a Travel Nursing assignment in Florida in about a decade
  3. One Traveler might not have the same experience as another.

Now, if you are simply looking for a facility that uses a lot of Travel Nurses and has little issue with canceled contracts, then that would be a question best answered by a recruiter. If you would like the contact info for one of the recruiters that I use and trust with my travels (and works for a company located in Florida), please feel free to email me at david@travelnursesbible.com.

Another good location to find ”Traveler-friendly” hospitals in a given area would be in the Travel Nursing forums. Who better to lead you to a Traveler-friendly hospital than another Traveler who has worked there?

Some good 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 as well as Healthcare Travelbook (healthcaretravelbook.com), which is a sort of Facebook style place for Travelers, which also has a forum.

Sorry I could not be of more specific help, but if you check the aforementioned sources as well as asking any of your Travel Nursing recruiters, they could probably steer you to a great hospital for an assignment.

Hope this helps.

David

david@travelnursesbible.com

07.02.15
by

Top Nursing Blogs for 2015

Share

Top Travel Nursing Blogs for 2015

Travel Nursing Blogs was named one of the 50 Top Nursing Blogs for 2015. Thanks for reading!

There are so many voices online that sometimes it can be hard to cut through all of the clutter to find the answers you need from websites you can trust. At Travel Nursing Blogs, we work really hard to give readers like you what they need — whether that’s answers to burning Travel Nursing questions, important tips and news relevant to the industry, or simply sharing something we think will make you laugh. So we were incredibly excited and honored to be included in TopRNToBSN.com’s list of the 50 Top Nursing Blogs for 2015!

We’ll continue to bring more and more great posts your way throughout 2015 and beyond, covering important topics like how to get started in Travel Nursing, housing, pay, safe nurse staffing levels, tips for life on the road, advice from our Ask a Travel Nurse expert, David Morrison, RN, resources for how to get the most out of your location, updates on where Chris Pratt is being adorable at the moment, tools for finding great Travel Nursing jobs, and so much more.

This list of 50 Top Nursing Blogs for 2015 also included a lot of other great blogs you might want to check out. We are proud to be ranked in the company of some of our faves, including:

  • Nurse Barb’s Daily Dose
  • Nurse Managers Blog
  • ER Nurse Insanity: The Traveling Years
  • Travel Nursing Central Blog
  • #WhatShouldWeCallNursing
  • Donna Cardillo, RN — The Inspiration Nurse
  • DiversityNursing Blog
  • Not Nurse Ratched
  • Nursetopia
  • ANA Nursespace
  • NurseBuff
  • Scrubs
  • Head Nurse
  • … and all of the other awesome blogs listed!

Click here to check out TopRNToBSN.com’s full list of the 50 Top Nursing Blogs for 2015, and please feel free to share your favorite nursing and/or Travel Nursing related blogs in the comments!

07.02.15
by

Study Finds Doctors Order Fewer Preventive Services For Medicaid Patients

Gynecologists ordered fewer preventive services for women who were insured by Medicaid than for those with private coverage, a recent study found.

The study by researchers at the Urban Institute examined how office-based primary care practices provided five recommended preventive services over a five-year period. The services were clinical breast exams, pelvic exams, mammograms, Pap tests and depression screening.

The study used data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, a federal health database of services provided by physicians in office-based settings. It looked at 12,444 visits to primary care practitioners by privately insured women and 1,519 visits by women who were covered by Medicaid between 2006 and 2010. That difference reflects the fact that the share of women who are privately insured is seven times larger than those on Medicaid, the researchers said. Pregnancy-related visits and visits to clinics were excluded from the analysis.

Overall, 26 percent of the visits by women with Medicaid included at least one of the five services, compared with 31 percent of the visits by privately insured women.

As for specific preventive services, the study found “strong evidence” that visits by Medicaid patients were less likely include a clinical breast exam or a Pap test, says Stacey McMorrow, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute’s Health Policy Center and the study’s lead author. The differences for depression screening weren’t statistically significant, and once patient characteristics such as age, race and home address were taken into account weren’t significant for mammograms or pelvic exams either.

For example, 20.5 percent of visits by privately insured women included a clinical breast exam, and 16.5 percent of visits included a Pap test. But the percentage of Medicaid-insured visits that included those services was only 12 percent and 9.5 percent, respectively. (The differences narrowed but remained statistically significant when adjusted for patient characteristics.)

The Medicaid-insured women were not necessarily receiving lower quality care, according to the study. They may have been receiving additional care at a community health clinic or from a nurse practitioner, for example, but the study only examined physician services provided in office-based practices.

In addition, privately insured women may have been receiving services more frequently than recommended. For example, current guidelines generally recommend a Pap test to screen for cervical cancer every three years. But if a patient asks for a Pap test every year the doctor may provide it, McMorrow says.

In addition, private insurers generally pay providers better than does Medicaid, sometimes significantly better, she says: “Where providers are getting reimbursed better, they’re going to provide services more frequently.”

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.