Obamacare Greatly Boosting Areas of Healthcare Staffing

Obamacare has been receiving plenty of criticism due to accusations that the health care law will hurt employees by eliminating positions or reducing hours to part-time. While the actual effects are still relatively unknown, staffing recruiters and HR professionals are confident that Obamacare will help drive job growth in certain areas.

Since PRN Funding works with numerous healthcare staffing companies, let’s take a look at the positions that are prepping for fast growth in the healthcare realm.

1. Nurse practitioners and physician assistants
Due to an increased demand for routine checkups and preventative medicine, physician services are set to increase at least 2 to 3 percent by next year. Nurse practitioners and physician assistants can perform similar services for the fraction of the cost of a doctor. Not to mention, general physicians are still in short supply and take much longer to enter the workforce. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts the demand for PA’s will swell by 30 percent and staffing for registered nurses will increase 26 percent by 2020.

2. Medical billing coders
Healthcare IT staffing will be huge. Combine the requirements for healthcare facilities to transition to electronic health records and comply with a new medical coding system (ICD-10) with millions of newly insured patients and you have a recipe for lots of jobs to fill.

The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) will include a staggering 69,000 diagnostic codes and physicians will be required to submit claims with the new codes starting Oct. 1, 2014 if they want to get paid. Lots of healthcare IT staffing will be necessary to build these codes into the electronic health records software. According to Staffing Industry Analysts, medical coding is one of the hottest jobs right now.

3. Occupational therapists
Occupational therapists make appropriate modifications to the homes and workplaces of the disabled to accommodate their mobility needs. Since Obamacare prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage, more disabled people will be able to take advantage of health insurance coverage. The BLS forecasts a 43 percent spike in occupational therapy employment by 2020.

4. Wellness and fitness coaching
The need for health education specialists is expected to rise by 37 percent in 2020, according to the BLS. Many employers will want to encourage healthy lifestyles, so the demand for workplace wellness programs will skyrocket.

Aside from healthcare staffing, Obamacare is also expected to help spur career growth for payroll service providers, computer programmers, lawyers, insurance consultants, customer service reps and human resources professionals.

5 Tips for Choosing a Medical Staffing Agency

Medical staffing agencies can be a great way to help you expand your job opportunities as hospitals and other healthcare institutions tap talent to fill in for permanent employees, which can potentially lead to a more permanent career for you. By hiring from a reputable medical staffing agency, the employer is assured that they meet the necessary qualifications, which means you picking the right medical staffing agency to sign up with crucial. Here are some tips on choosing the right medical staffing agency for you:
1. Do your research and look into a variety of agencies. You can actually register with more than one agency and you may find you prefer one over the other and decide to remain with them after trying out a few different ones.

2. Don’t feel pressured. There’s no need to sign a contract right away or feel pressured to take a specific assignment either. Wait for the right staffing company and job, rather than settling for one you won’t be happy with, even short-term.

3. Find out how often the agency gets jobs opportunities. There’s no point in signing with a medical staffing agency that won’t open doors for you because they don’t receive many job openings. Be sure the agency receives ample assignments, and find out how many are in your field.

4. Meet the people working for the agency. Since those employed by the staffing agency will be the ones helping you through the process of finding temporary medical staffing employment, they should have a clear understanding of the position you’re looking for. If they don’t, you won’t be happy with the results.

5. Choose an agency that has your best interests in mind. The best medical staffing agencies will look out for you, provide support and understand what sort of jobs are the right fit for you. If they aren’t willing to do so, they aren’t an agency worth sticking with.

Nursing Makes CareerBuilder’s List of Hardest-to-Fill Jobs

Even though the job market has been less than stellar, a new study from CareerBuilder found that 35 percent of hiring managers have positions that sat unfilled for over 12 weeks. Jobs in health care, sales and technology are the hardest to fill according to their online survey of more than 2,000 hiring managers.

The hardest to fill jobs (in order of jobs added between 2010 -2013) include:

Sales representative

Machine operator/Assembler/Production

Nurse

Truck Driver

Software Developer

Engineer

Marketing professional

Accountant

Mechanic

IT manager/Network administrator

Each of these hard-to-fill positions are experiencing positive job growth.

New York Passes Mandatory Paid Sick Leave Measure

Across the U.S., numerous states and cities have been recently passing bills that obligate employers to provide paid sick days, which have generated debate among employers and legislators, and have impelled some to overturn the laws.

In May, New York joined San Francisco, Washington D.C., and others as the latest city to pass this sort of bill. Under New York’s law, companies with 20 or more workers will have to provide five paid sick days starting in April 2014. Businesses with 15 or more employees have until October 2015 to obey.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, (BLS), about 1/3 of all employees don’t have access to paid sick days.

Those who defend the bills say that mandatory paid sick leave is a public health issue that will help to deter the spreading of disease by letting employees who are sick or have a sick child stay home without having to worry about losing that day’s pay or their job. Other supporters see it as an issue of work-life balance that will allow workers to take care of their family.

However, some employers are against these laws because they’ll raise their businesses’ costs, which could prevent them from hiring new employees or potentially cause firings. Some claim that big employers already offer paid leave and forcing them to comply with new regulations just adds another burden.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research senior economist Eileen Appelbaum says that the average cost increase to most employers offering paid leave is a one-time rise of 2 percent in payroll costs. She claims that mandated paid leave levels the playing field, saying that “workers in low-paid jobs haven’t had access to paid leave and that’s tremendously unfair.”

The Family and Medical Leave Act, passed in 1993, promises up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to covered workers. Appelbaum, who is the former director of the Rutgers University Center for Women and Work, says that higher-paid employees might be able to afford unpaid time off, but most employees can’t go without a paycheck for very long.

According to the BLS, while employers are not required by law to give paid sick leave, around 75% do.

Where Do New Nurses Earn the Highest Salaries in the US?

In a recent article in the nurses’ magazine Scrubs, a breakdown of nurses’ average pay per hour was conducted. Their article showed that while the Midwest boasts competitive pay rates for new nurses, the West Coast does have the highest pay per hour overall.

Nurse Zone reports that these are the average pay per hour numbers for top cities in the Midwest:

Billings, MT: $26
Cheyenne, WY: $24.50
Denver, CO: $27
Albuquerque, NM: $28
Fargo, ND: $24
Sioux Falls, SD: $23
Omaha, NE: $23
Wichita, KS: $22
Minneapolis, MN: $30
Des Moines, IA: $24
Kansas City, MO: $25
Milwaukee, WI: $27
Chicago, IL: $29
Detroit, MI: $28
Indianapolis, IN: $25
Cleveland, OH: $27

To read more about new nurses’ pay and what nurses in various cities have to say about their wages, click here.

To learn more about how nurse staffing factoring can benefit your agency – click here.

Medical Staffing: The Highest Demand Medical Careers

While medical jobs are practically always in demand, the following jobs in the medical field have been predicted to grow in the ten-year period of 2008-2018, according to a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

1. Home Health Aides. Expected to double by 2018, home health aides are projected to have the highest rate of growth. Though the pay for this job can be just above minimum wage, the availability of jobs and the fact that no college degree is needed have made this the job expected to be the highest in demand.

2. Medical Assistants. Another health career that doesn’t demand a college degree, medical assistant come second on the list with an estimated nearly 34% growth percentage from 2008-2018. Medical assistants help nurses and doctors with drawing blood, giving injections, taking a patient’s vital signs, and more. Though there are certification courses for medical assistants, most learn and are trained on the job.

3. Registered Nurses. Registered Nurses (RN) are supposed to have an increase in growth of approximately 22%. In the ten year period of 2008-2018, over half a million more RN jobs are supposed to be added. At the very least RNs need an associate’s degree, which is the most common level of education for RNs to have completed according to the BLS, though many also have a bachelor’s degree as well. Because of the higher levels of education RNs have, they’re paid more than medical assistants and home health aides.

4. Physicians and Surgeons. Expected to grow by 21.8% by 2018, roughly 144,000 jobs in these fields will be added. Physicians are already in such high demand today and experts estimate that as many as one of every ten physician openings remains unoccupied. Because of the high level of education required – a medical doctorate – to become a physician or surgeon, these jobs are among the highest paid in the healthcare realm.

5. Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) & Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN). Projected to have a 20.7% increase in growth by 2018, LPN and LVN jobs come in at number five on the list. LPN or LVN jobs don’t demand as much college as RN jobs so the pay is usually less for LPNs or LVNs but are above the pay grade and education levels of medical assistants.

6. Nursing Aides, Orderlies, Attendants. Nursing aides are supposed to see a projected 18.8% increase in growth from 2008-2018. While nursing aides and orderlies can be found in hospitals, typically they work in long term care or nursing homes.

If you are considering launching a medical staffing business, these fields may be your safest bet. Don’t forget – the higher the demand, the more cash flow you’ll need in hand. It’s a good thing PRN Funding is here and ready to fund your business with our medical staffing factoring programs. From nurse staffing to healthcare staffing programs – we work with staffing companies of all sizes to help them grow!

Size of Staff Now Matters to 2014 Obamacare

While the Affordable Care Act doesn’t go into full effect until 2014, business owners should be aware that the size of their staff this year determines whether they are hit by penalties.

Most SBOs know by now that any company with over 50 full-time equivalent employees will be required to provide healthcare for their employees in 2014 or face fines. However, some aren’t aware that the government will be using staff data from 2013 to determine whether a company falls under the provision. According to the WSJ article Insurance Rule Will Go By Size Of 2013 Staff, this could change some SBO’s plans to change their staff next year. Rather than wait, they should make the changes this year while there is still time. A misunderstanding of the provision’s rules will have some companies blindsided with penalties in 2014.

Once business owners get wise to the rules, staffing in these companies may be rearranged and reorganized. Change often brings opportunity, and industries like temporary staffing will probably be the most affected.

HCA’s Parallon Acquires Healthcare Staffing Firm

Parallon Business Solutions, subsidiary of healthcare service provider HCA, recently bought a Texas based healthcare staffing agency to supplement their workforce management offerings. Their new acquisition (Martin,Fletcher) will add physician staffing to the existing pool of 7,000 health professionals. Parallon will now be able to fill temporary and full time physicians to client hospitals and elsewhere, in addition to nurses and allied staff such as dieticians and physical therapists.

This acquisition comes as no surprise in light of recent trends towards staffing, especially in the healthcare industry. Health care as we know it is changing, due in part to the Affordable Care Act and also the coming nationwide shortages of health professionals. By buying Martin, Fletcher, Parallon is simply seeking to stay ahead of the curve by forecasting the need for temporary health care workers to fill shortages.

For the full article, see HCA’s Parallon Buys Texas Company

CBiz Small Business Employment Index is Up in August

Just released: The CBiz Payroll Services announced that its Small Business Employment Index, a barometer of hiring trends among companies with 300 or fewer employees, went up by 1.15% in August, after a decline of 1.57% in July. Additionally, 29% of survey respondents increased staffing, while 20% let go employees.

Moreover, Philip Noftsinger, business unit president for CBiz Payroll Services, said the data sets, taken together, “provide some hope that employment is at least on solid ground and increasing moderately.”

Click here to read the entire announcement: CBiz Small Business Employment Index rises in August.

Overview of Nurse Staffing Accounts Receivable Factoring

When your nurse staffing agency bills clients, you know that medical providers (i.e. hospitals, nursing homes, medical clinics, etc.) can take months to compensate you for your staff’s time. When you use nurse staffing accounts receivable factoring to secure funding for your company, you can:

  • Rest assured that you can pay bills and employees on time.
  • Have the confidence to make the necessary moves toward expansion.

What Is Nurse Staffing Accounts Receivable Factoring?
In nurse staffing accounts receivable factoring, outstanding invoices are converted into cash through a ‘factor’ for a discount. This means that instead of waiting for your clients to pay you for your staffing services, you will be able to use the money your workers have already earned right away.

Most factors offer nurse staffing non-recourse factoring: this allows a factor to be held responsible for unpaid invoices if the staffing agency goes out of business or declares bankruptcy during the time in which the owner’s invoice was factored. Non-recourse factoring does not cover:

  • Very late payments where there is no bankruptcy.
  • Disputes over invoices.
  • General collections issues.

With accounts receivable factoring, you won’t hesitate to accept large staffing requests due to lack of funding.

Click here to read more about nurse staffing accounts receivables factoring.

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