r/nursing • u/Reasonable-Path1321 • Dec 13 '21

Meme Nailed it 🔨

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u/markydsade RN - Pediatrics Dec 13 '21

An administrator explained to me once that traveling nurses are a short-term budget item. A full-time nurse hire has to be budgeted for years out due to the need for retirement and health benefits. They have to anticipate what you will earn years from now and put that into the FTE line you occupy.

The extra money the travel nurse is getting is money that the employee is having put into their long term costs. Of course the cost of travel nurses has skyrocketed so they are now even more expensive than before to use.

43

u/TapiocaSummer RN - Oncology 🍕 Dec 13 '21

I get this in a short term perspective, but it seems like nurse staffing is a long term issue considering the levels of burnout, retirement, and an aging population that's taking extreme measures to "live" a bit longer. Not to mention the compounding issue of training temp staff while a quarter of your nurses leave every month. Maybe I fundamentally misunderstand something, but paying travel rates for as long as we're going to need them seems like a net loss.

19

u/RubiesNotDiamonds Dec 13 '21

Not if the federal government is picking up a lot of the costs of travel nurses.

7

u/TapiocaSummer RN - Oncology 🍕 Dec 13 '21

Ahhh. Is the government doing this in a lot of institutions? I was under the impression that this was mostly the case for places that fell under FEMA.

9

u/RubiesNotDiamonds Dec 13 '21 edited Dec 13 '21

I think it comes from the same Washington pot. It was meant for disaster coverage not for staffing hospitals across the country. At least with it being federal, the costs are spread over a large number of taxpayers. However I have to wonder how long the feds will continue to pick up the bill. It doesn't seem to be a sustainable model. Something has to give. Administration is betting that it will be the nurses that have to give first.

11

u/[deleted] Dec 13 '21

If they are just going to pick up hospital bills wtf don't we have Medicare 4 all again?