Faculty Shortage Hurt Nursing Programs

Would you take a job that paid you 50% less than your current one? Nurses around the U.S. are facing this question daily when it comes to choosing between working as a registered nurse or working as a nurse intructor. More often than not, RNs are choosing to stay in the field instead of teaching new nurses, which is making the nationwide nurse shortage an even bigger problem. Fewer teachers in the classroom means more nursing programs have to turn away prospective nursing students.

An article in the Marshall News Messenger quoted associate dean for undergraduate nursing programs at the University of Texas at Tyler, “UT Tyler’s four-year bachelor’s degree program has about 610 students…The school gets about 300-375 applicants and admits about 130 to 140 students.”

The article also included director of the college’s associate degree nursing program, Dayna Davidson, and her thoughts: “About 200 people usually apply for Kilgore College’s 60 positions.”

Still not everyone is hurting. Some private universitities, such as East Texas Baptist University, have empty seats in their nursing programs. Leslie Borcherding, interim dean of the nursing department in teh Frank S. Groner Endowed Memorial School of Professional Studies, thinks the school’s higher tuition combined with the poor economy are jeeping the nursing program’s enrollment down.

Click here to read the entire article: Faculty shortages hurt college nursing programs.

Small Business Owners Report Cash Flow Concerns

According to the Monthly Small Business Watch, a report that measures economic confidence by randomly selecting 750 small business owners and asking them to respond to six questions, 50% of small business owners have experienced temporary cash flow issues in the past 90 days. In addition, 53% of the surveyed business owners reported that they will decrease spending on business development in the next six months.

Now, more than ever, is a prime time for cash flow consultants and factoring brokers to reach out to those small business owners and pair them with the appropriate funding source. As many of The Factoring Blog’s readers know, PRN Funding is a great option for medical staffing factoring, medical transcription factoring, medical coding factoring and home care factoring.

Click here to read more current small business cash flow statistics.

Factoring Makes List of 101 Ways to Save Money

Jill Amadio, Jacquelyn Lynn, Ivan R. Misner, Chris Penttila, Guen Sublette and Laura Tiffany of Entrepreneur.com came recently contributed to a very important document for business owners: 101 Ways to Save Money in Your Business.

Compiled to advise business owners and entrepreneurs on how to save money in a penny-pinching economy, the accounts receivable factoring specialists at PRN Funding found #86 particularly helpful:

“Consider the factors. Factors–companies that essentially buy and then liquidate a company’s accounts receivable–provide an option to tied-up money.”

PRN Funding Talks on Recession and Medical Staffing

The editors of Recruiting & Staffing Solutions Magazine assembled a prestigious round table of funding and lending experts and asked them a series of questions concerning the recession and how it has affected their clients. The responses to the survey was included in a special feature in the March/April issue of RSSM. PRN Funding’s CEO, Phil Cohen, was one of the factoring experts who participated in the survey.

A summary of the questions asked and Mr. Cohen’s responses are included below:

In your opinion, what is the biggest impact on the staffing industry by the present credit crunch?
Credit worthy staffing agencies are finding it increasingly difficult to either receive or renew working capital lines from banks. In addition, alternative financing vehicles traditionally utilized by smaller firms, such as home equity lines and credit cards, are also becoming more difficult to obtain. Reduced access to capital is compounded by an industry wide slow down in the payment of invoices by customers.

What do you believe will be the biggest opportunity staffing firms will have because of the present recession?
I believe the biggest opportunity staffing firms have right now is to help fill in the gaps for employers who have had to lay-off full-time employees. Staffing firms can use this recession to provide temporary workers to companies who don’t necessarily have the financial resources available to perform the necessary background checks or offer benefits packages. By utilizing staffing firms, these companies can maintain a business-as-usual atmosphere on a more affordable level.

If a staffing firm wanted to research funding and lending companies, what are the two biggest factors that separate your company from others in the industry?

  1. Medical Staffing Industry Expertise – PRN Funding, LLC understands the unique characteristics of the medical staffing industry. PRN Funding is very familiar with traditional payment terms, industry jargon and day-to-day procedures associated with the medical staffing industry.
  1. Extremely Flexible Factoring Terms – PRN Funding offers the utmost in flexibility to medical staffing companies. Our clients choose when, who, how much and how long to factor their invoices.

Which industries have been influenced the most by the downturn?
As a very focused factor, we are only qualified to comment on the medical staffing industry.  Unlike other downturns, even the medical staffing industry has been affected as facilities have had significantly less difficulty filling open shifts.

In your opinion, which industries have been the least affected by the current economic situation?
Once again, I am only qualified to comment on the medial staffing industry.  While virtually all segments have been affected, those agencies providing home health care services have been less affected than other specialties as demand for their services is less discretionary and their clients (governmental institutions) don’t have any staff of their own.

Some Nurses Struggle to Find Jobs

The current shape of the economy has led some nurses to push off retirement and led others to resume their full-time careers for financial reasons. In the short run, it looks as though the nursing shortage has been haulted. Take a deeper look into the situation, and you’ll find that the opposite is actually occurring…What an article in The Washington Post calls it a “Band-Aid” solution.

“After more than a decada when hospitals struggled to maintain sufficient staffing and when nurses could have their pick of jobs, the want ads have virtually disappeared, and only acute-care and emergency-room nurses remain in great demand,” according to The Washington Post.

Click here to read the entire article: Jobs Scarce, Even for Nurses.

More Men Turning to Nursing Careers

It’s no secret that the poor economy has led to a number job layoffs. However,  the nursing industry is experiencing a reverse effect. More part-time female nurses are going back to work full-time because their husbands are being laid off from their jobs.

Now there’s a new growing trend…More men are entering the nursing profession. Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, MI said that 18% of the 2009 class of nursing students are men, a number that has doubled since 2003.

Check out the video below for more information.

NYC Council Speaker Aims to Improve Nurse Shortage

Although she alluded to it about a month ago during her State of the City Address, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn formally announced a five-year partnership with CUNY to increase the university’s teaching capacity to train an additional 100 nursing students a year.

New York is hit just as hard with the national nurse shortage, turning down 575 nurse applicants last year due to a lack of nursing teachers.

Quinn’s initiative would permit CUNY to pull five to ten seasoned nurses from New York City’s hospitals and have them teach as guest faculty members. Quinn’s solution would result in the training of 100 new nurses a year.

Click here to read more about Quinn’s nurse shortage plans.

Half of Nation’s Hospitals Operating in the Red

It wasn’t very long ago when PRN Funding wrote a 3-part series on the healthcare cash flow crisis in America, giving a glimpse into the actual costs of America’s healthcare system. Written at the end of 2004,we shared a startling statistic in the three-part Cash Poor Series, 1/3 of the nation’s hospitals were operating in the red. Just 4 years later, 50% of America’s hospitals are currently operating in the red, and many are in the midst of cutting back on services and staffing.

According to an article that appeared in today’s Los Angeles Times, “Forty-four percent of hospitals have seen declines in surgeries, with hip procedures showing the steepest drop-off at 45%, according to another new survey. As a result, 47% of the hospitals surveyed expect to make staff cuts, and 69% plan to cancel or delay equipment purchases, according to the survey by Novation, a company that manages supplier contracts for hospitals.

Novation has responded by demanding that vendors maintain or roll back prices on the goods they sell to hospitals.”

Click here to read the entire article: Half of nation’s hospitals running losses.

Factoring for Home Care Agencies

The factoring experts at PRN Funding, LLC announced this week that it is now accepting factoring applications from home care agencies. For the convenience of the factoring blog‘s readers, we have included the text from the official press release below:

PRN Funding Expands Funding to Home Care Agencies

Cleveland, OH-Keeping up with the ever-changing medical staffing marketplace, PRN Funding, LLC made a formal announcement this week that it is now accepting home care factoring applications.

Previously, the focused accounts receivable factoring firm has worked exclusively with healthcare vendors that sell goods or deliver services directly to medical facilities. By adding home care agencies to their repertoire, the invoice funding firm is now able to collect payments directly from multiple state governments and their agencies.

“It has come to our attention that home care agencies and private duty firms could benefit greatly by PRN Funding’s factoring services,” said PRN Funding’s president, Philip Cohen. “It’s a growing market that we are excited to help.”

Home care, private duty and in-home care are all phrases that refer to a specialized care or life assistance care given to a person within the confines of his/her home rather than in a medical facility.

With years of experience in healthcare services financing, PRN Funding has a precise understanding of the unique challenges within the demanding business of serving vendors to healthcare institutions. PRN Funding offers financial resources to these companies by purchasing their accounts receivable–a process known as ‘factoring,’  which provides the cash needed to sustain and grow a healthcare business.

For more information, please visit PRN Funding’s Home Care Factoring page.

Temp Healthcare Workers Lack Adequate Background Checks

An interesting article appeared in the LA Times last week in which Los Angeles County officials were quoted saying “they do not know how many of the 2,000 temporary workers serving patients at county hospitals and clinics each month are working without a criminal background check.”

The LA County officials suspended the contract of one of its largest allied health staffing providers, Mediscan, because the agency placed a convicted rapist at Roybal Comprehensive Health Center, a large health clinic in east Los Angeles.

A representative from Mediscan was quoted in the article saying that all of the proper background checks had been carried out, going back seven years without a problem.

Click here to read the entire article in the LA Times: LA County Unaware How Many Temporary Healthcare Workers Lack Background Checks.

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