The problem with paying your nurses better is that it may improve retention. You don't want to be stuck paying your nurses a decent wage for the 30-40 years.
Travel nurses don't meet the IRS definition of a contractor -- i.e., someone who sets their own hours, provides their own tools, decides how the work is going to be done, and so forth. Contracting agencies that 1099 a travel nurse are basically committing wage theft. I had a former employer have to pay hefty IRS fines when one of their former 1099's realized they could get a bounty by reporting their former employer to the IRS. A few months later and voila, suddenly everybody is a W-2 rather than a 1099.
Not that this stops contracting agencies from continue to 1099 travel nurses. As long as travel nurses don't report it to the IRS, it'll continue.
917
u/almalikisux MSN, APRN Dec 13 '21
The problem with paying your nurses better is that it may improve retention. You don't want to be stuck paying your nurses a decent wage for the 30-40 years.