More than 11 states are looking at legislation to prevent price gouging by staffing agencies that have seen demand for traveling and temporary nurses and nurse aides soar through the pandemic.
Missouri, the most recent state to join the list, would hit healthcare staffing agencies that “substantially” increase their costs during a declared emergency with felony charges, according to Kaiser Health Network. Nebraska is looking to eliminate buyout costs for facilities that want to hire an agency nurse full-time, the head of the state’s health care association told McKnights Long-Term Care News Tuesday. Nebraska’s law would not cap what agencies could charge, though.
The proposals are in various stages of progress. Where any of them might wind up is uncertain, but the fact that more scrutiny and pressure are being exerted on the situation is better than the opposite, as far as providers are concerned.
Complaints about price gouging have swelled as the pandemic has dragged on. As early as December 2021, the nation’s two largest nursing home advocacy groups petitioned the Federal Trade Commission to address “anticompetitive practices and pricing gouging of nurse-staffing agencies,” per a letter from Leading Age. The American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living sent its own letter with a similar request, McKnights reported.
The average weekly pay for a travel nurse in January was $3,077 – 67% higher than the rate in January 2020, according to a report by Vivian Health posted to Becker’s Hospital Review. The average weekly pay jumped 99.5% from January 2020 ($1,896 per week) to December 2021 ($3,782 per week). But the wages reached a “new floor” in July 2022 when they hit $2,997 per week.
Lawmakers and state associations want a reckoning on these costs. Healthcare providers throughout the industry in Iowa reported that base agency hourly rates were up by as much as 40% since 2020, and in Pennsylvania, rates are as much as 200% to 400% what they were prepandemic, Kaiser reported.
Even more drastic, Brendan Williams, president and CEO of the New Hampshire Health Care Association, told McKnights in December 2021 that while nursing homes were offering $17 per hour, plus shift differentials for nursing assistants, staffing agencies were paying as high as $69 per hour, plus charging facilities agency fees on top of that. During a legislative forum in New York hosted by 1199SEIU earlier this month, Patricia O’Connor, vice president of long-term care operations at Catholic Health, said the nonprofit health system spent more than $10 million on agency staffing.
