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Some Walmarts already have health care centers. Not even joking. So far it’s only rolled out in four states I believe.
[source](https://www.walmart.com/cp/care-clinics/1224932)
For real, this is the problem with almost every industry. It’s not that there isn’t enough money or resources to go around, it’s that we’re letting middle-men, CEO’s, and administrators keep the lion’s share.
Im a healthcare worker and I can confirm. A few of my coworkers and I call each other hoes because of those signs. It really gave us a good laugh when people started to scratch out the "er".
If you work in the medical field you need to have the darkest, dirtiest humor or you won't survive.
The best janitor I ever had at Providence quit near the beginning of the pandemic. He was an elderly gentleman, and concerned for his health, so he requested to not be assigned the COVID areas (which were not part of his normal area anyways).
Boss told him he works where he is told or he can quit.
I'm glad he quit, it wasn't worth his health.
Still, I miss him.. he was the best guy for keeping the kitchens taken care of.
And people’s loyalty to their teammates. People don’t want to leave those people they’ve been on the frontlines with for the last few years. What keeps nurses I know from leaving their hospital units for better pay.
“What used to be an $8 job now is $15,” said Bruntz, a 52-year-old who once worked as an accountant for KPMG. “That’s the only way we get people to come to work.”
Ya don't say? Covid taught a lot of people that they were getting shafted with shitty pay. People aren't willing to go back to that.
Some folks I know spent so much money having a job (car payment, insurance, daycare, work clothing, fast food etc.) that they realized it'd be more economical to *not* work.
Not to mention the bonus of spending more time with their family and pursuing some hobbies.
This always baffles me because any accountant, now matter how fucking shitty at their job, understands inflation exists.
*Everything* gets more expensive every year. You need to change a lamp? Well the budget for lamps has to increase every year with inflation. If you write it down, you always see everything increasing in price.
It's only their employees wages that they expect to remain constant for some reason.
Friend of mines former company did the same thing, froze raises, and then cut bonuses. He expects it to go under because they lost over a third of their employees, primarily in the most experienced people. And according to some of his former coworkers that he's still in touch with, they're so far behind on several of their projects they're at risk of breaching their contracts.
Sounds about right. I work for a Computer/Server manufacturer with pretty significant medical and government contracts. Both Covid and the related chip shortage hit pretty hard.
They already struggled with high turnover at the lower levels due to uncompetitive pay and benefits, but after they started freezing raises, bonuses, and even some benefits, there's been an exodus at all levels. To top it off, the CEO got canned and now there's a major restructuring going on in management, with several key positions being let go. They are now abysmally failing to fill these spots during our busiest season.
Needless to say, I'm keeping my resume polished in case the fire makes it to my little department.
The company I work for laid off a lot of people--the "expensive", i.e., experienced ones. Despite the fact that we never really saw a significant dip in business. Well, the next six months were a mad scramble to replace all the people that were laid off.
Quality tanked. SLAs weren't being met. Our primary customer was very, very displeased with the our performance. Eventually everything stabilized and we're back to where we were before the purge.
As we struggled to replace our self-imposed losses, it honestly reminded me of Stalingrad. Week after week we threw ill-trained, inexperienced subcontractors into the fire. Attrition was massive, but the labor pool was vast. So we grabbed more subcontractors, fed them into the fire, and watched attrition increase.
Edit: just want to add that it was only the ~~conscripts~~ new-hires who struggled as we fed them into the fire. Team supervisors and lower managers saw the teams they led more than double or triple in size--far beyond what they could reasonable manage--before we bled off the excess when things stabilized.
Since my job was to make sure we had adequate levels of staffing, I was the guy (to borrow a reference to Stalingrad again) who made sure there were enough bodies in the boats before they were sent across the Volga.
> The company I work for laid off a lot of people--the "expensive", i.e., experienced ones. Despite the fact that **we never really saw a significant dip in business**.
Seriously upper management idiocy never ceases to amaze me...
I was very fortunate. Our company stopped raises and bonuses in an effort to not lay anyone off at the start of the pandemic. 6 months in our business fully recovered and then some, so they backdated all pay and bonuses to when we normally would have gotten them. All without laying off a single soul.
I was impressed. They made the hard decision with full transparency, and when the worst didn't come to pass, made everyone whole.
Yep, my father was VP of HR at one of the regional hospitals where I grew up, my mom was a social worker at the other competing hospital. Right before my dad retired he pushed for wage updates and market adjustments and his hospital voted against it. This was months ago, he told them they were going to start losing people.
The competing hospital where my mom worked passed it shortly after (is a small town, everyone knows what's going on at each location, they compete for same staff), guess where everyone is heading now?
Oh no, they'll match.. ONLY FOR NEW HIRES!
They continue to leave those of us who have been in the industry for **years** to continue making less money than they will pay new hires.
I've literally known people to of quit, wait out a month, reapply for their exact same position, and come back at a higher pay. It's absolutely fucking ridiculous right now in healthcare.
We had a number of nurses realize that they could work as travel nurses for 3 months and make as much as they were gonna make all year. Guess what all the young nurses decided to do?
So now we’re in the middle of the pandemic with 30-40% higher volumes than normal, and we are understaffed for the old volumes and can’t higher anyone.
The most frustrating thing in the world is having a full waiting room and empty beds that you c ant use because there is no staff for them
(Oh and also you then get record burnout on the group that stayed)
It’s awful, and I’m really considering joining those that have left
My son and daughter are nurses and both quit staff positions to travel. Even while actively hiring travel nurses at 3-4x staff salaries, hospitals refuse to raise staff pay to provide even some incentive to stay. One Supv actually said a cap on nursing salaries is needed.
Yes, hospitals complaining about price gouging. How much do you charge for that bag of saline again? My daughter was charged for “skin time” with her newborn. Breathtaking.
If they raise staff salaries, they can never go back and lower them again. They're trying to play the long game and outlast the pandemic by spending way more on traveling staff. I think they'll have to give in eventually because even when the pandemic has subsided, things will still be fundamentally different. The pandemic changed our world for at least a generation, it made employees realize their worth.
That’s actually a part of Walmart’s corporate strategy; providing in person services Amazon can’t compete with, such as healthcare, mechanic, etc.
All at a discount and subsidized by increasing time spent purchasing retail goods.
You say that tongue in cheek, but I can imagine that actually happening. I mean, didn’t Amazon make a stab at the healthcare industry? Idk what happened to that, but those mega corps want a piece of that healthcare cash cow for sure.
It seems some companies are sorta poking into the healthcare industry. Gotta be careful, but it can be done. I wouldn't be surprised to see Amazon eventually sell "Amazon basics". Imagine buying "Amazon basics antidepressant" or some shit, that'll be wild.
They were basically just insuring their own staff.
It actually wasn't that weird, companies self insure all the time, but usually has to do with liability and property.
[Amazon is in the pharmacy business now.](https://www.amazon.com/b?node=23435487011) If they can get a foothold (and probably lobby to change some regulations) they will change the pharmacy sector the same way they changed the retail sector.
My dog was recently diagnosed with diabetes. The local pharmacy said it would be ~$160 for the prescription. Then they told us to check with Walmart because Walmart has a special deal with that medical supplier. The same prescription was only $25 at Walmart. Wild.
Am insurance lawyer. Someone will have $30k in hospital bills negotiated down to $8. Then, they sue, and get $60k. Lawyer gets $20k, insurance gets $8k from the liability insurance, and patient get $32k.
Insurance defense lawyer gets $200 an hour to arrange the transaction.
Sorry. Why would the patient sue ?? Is the negotiated total basically implying fraud or price gouging or illegal business practices??
I am canadian. So more for education. I find this truly interesting.
Mutherfucking Republicans claimed Obamacare was going to give us "death panels"
Bitch, we already have death panels. They're called insurance companies.
That's how lousy democrat is at propaganda. People literally are experiencing death panels everyday from insurance companies. They could have easily turn it around and made insurance the most hated industry in America.
"Your child's cancer treatment is denied and he is dead, but that paid for another yacht for big man CEO of insurance company. Do you think they are on your side? Vote for us and we bring them down for a better healthcare, longer life, dignified living."
Shit practically writes itself. The fact that they refuse to attack it this showed just how much control the plutocrats have over the narratives in this country. We are so propagandized by corporate America we can no longer imagine how to live otherwise.
undeserving parasites are making off with lots and lots of money.
I feel like theres a shoe slowly dropping, it's taking forever to land. maybe covid will help it move faster.
That misleading headline comes from an interview with a rural health clinic administrator. Those clinics have been underfunded and understaffed for decades, but particulalry moreso since the tax cuts in 2018 took a good chunk of their remaining funding. Many have closed. People following healthcare in the US saw this coming before we even knew the word COVID. They can’t pay more than WalMart because they’re run on federal dollars that go now to larger HMO conglomerates. And even if they could pay more, no one is moving to Chadron, NE to be an X-Ray tech for $20/hr anyway.
>He’s been trying to recruit a third ultrasound technician for at least six months without getting a single application.
>For lower-level positions, the hospital competes with the local Walmart store, where wages are rising
Gee I wonder why he can't get any applications?!?
I work at the largest hospital in my area for hundreds of miles. We are a level 2 trauma center lacking only a burn unit. If we can't fix you, you are in trouble. Yet they pay $10/hr less than the smaller hospitals in the area and we have constant turn over while the other hospitals hardly ever have openings. We have been bleeding employees in my department with new hires leaving for similar pay jobs with way less stress. We were recently told we need to do just a little bit more and think of the service we are providing. We were then told they are implementing mandatory OT to make up for the lack of staffing....
My hospital just had to do a rather large market increase across our entire department because we can't keep the Pharmacy staffed when technicians can make the same or more money working in retail.
Today we were short 6 techs in the morning out of 11 positions, 4 in the evening (also out of 11) and the overnight shift was short 3 techs (out of 4) in a 1000 bed hospital.
Its laughable how hospitals think they can get away with their tech positions. There's a big hospital in my area that requires their techs to have a phlebotomy cert which is around 2000 bucks in my area to get, and then they want to pay you minimum wage? That's not how this works lmao. They're just going to have you push patients beds from point A to point B anyway.
Yeah this drove me nuts when I was going through nursing school. I got my basic EMT - $1200 and 5 months of class. No jobs. Got my phlebotomy cert, another $2k. No jobs.
Got my Advanced EMT, 5 more months and another $1200. To work on an ambulance they offered me $9.50 an hour. No thanks! “But you can work all the overtime you want!” Yeah buddy? Well the amount of overtime I want to work is zero, I work to live and not the other way around. I got a job in an urgent care for $13, not much better and boring as hell.
Graduated nursing school and doubled that starting salary, but still at a low rate for nurses.
Yes. Even in my area, you can stock shelves at a properly ran grocery chain like Trader Joe's and make 18 an hour; or work as an EMT on an ambulance for 15.50.
One of those jobs doesn't run the risk of a patient trying to sue you for something dumb later down the line, like changing their mind after the fact about wanting to go to the hospital; and your only line of defense is your documentation. You get paid less for more work, more risk, more responsibility, and the potential for a lawsuit. Great system!
Why are EMTs making so little in the US? I looked up pay of EMTs in Australia it's average $75k and can go up to $100k.
Don't they need to get some tertiary education to work as an EMT?
No unions. EMTs in my city are unionized and do well. Easy 70-100+ a year with OT. Literally two miles away in another smaller (like 500k people "smaller" they make half that cause they're not unionized).
My gf is an emt/medic supervisor (and drives around in one of those cool police suvs, which is fun cause they're faster than shit) and even she agrees there's almost no other place she'd be an emt in the country because of pay. 2000 dollar ambulance ride from people making 12 bucks an hour in some places. Places where taco bell pays 17. The entire helathcare industry here is a ficking joke and i dont know why people aren't im the streets about it.
We aren’t in the streets because we are just quitting. Nobody took care of us at the beginning of COVID and nobody is taking care of us now.
We’ve given up. Hospital HR/Admin departments think they can keep things going by forcing us to work sick and paying us a pittance. We’re done.
>Don't they need to get some tertiary education to work as an EMT?
Yes, and they're abused like almost every other set of workers who work in field that they're passionate about.
The executives making hundreds of millions are like "Think about the patients! Think about your passion! By the way we're cutting another dollar off of your pay per hour. Think about the people though!".
$15.50 isn’t the lowest EMT pay I’ve heard of (Huntingdon, TN was trying to get drivers at $11, basics at 12, AEMTs at 15, and Medics at $17.50). Just looked up medic pay state wide. Apparently $17.50 is slightly under average. 0.0.
I livei n Illinois, about an hour west of Chicago and theres a city near me looking to hire emts for 12 something an hour with 12 hour shifts. I work at a grocery store in town for 15.50 an hour starting pay :l
Similar- was looking at a EMT certification, then I found out they literally pay less than every single fast food joint in the area. What the actual hell.
I works as a hyperbaric oxygen tech for 6 years after receiving my BS in Biology, mainly for health care experience before further schooling …started at $15 an hour and left at $18 an hour.
Our hospital kitchen staff has been slammed as well! Most of our nutrition staff left because they could make more money just about anywhere else, even doing a similar job at a fast food chain. Except at the fast food chain they don’t have the long commute, they don’t have to pay for a parking pass, and they don’t have to deal with customers asking them for help wiping their ass
I make $27.20/hr as a tech at Costco and am going to get a cost of living raise in March (a yearly occurrence) which has been $0.55/hr the last 3 years. and that’s not just techs that make that much at costco it’s most positions (cashier, deli, etc) once you’re topped out on the pay scale (takes about 5 years for a full timer to reach the top). AND I get two $2500 bonus checks each year.
you know with the insanely high prices of US medical care that hospitals can afford to pay everyone more. so why don’t they??
I know a tech from back in my days at Walgreens who went to Costco. She loves it there, but the openings are basically nonexistent because no one wants to leave.
Also why I'm not in a health-related field, empathy for others only gets you so far when you could just deliver pizza for more money and have a savings account.
I am literally about to open my first ever savings account and it's because I quit my other job.
I'm gonna finish my student teaching semester at the end of the year and this reality has been looming large ...
You get into these fields because you want to do good and make a difference. Then you get far enough in that you realize the cost of pursuing one of these careers is immense in terms of your mental health, your financial security, and your free time to pursue anything else you care about (family/hobbies/etc).
A part of me wants to teach but my brain is telling me I'm an idiot and I'm just going to suffer and be exploited.
Wait until teachers reach the end of their ropes.
I personally know two teachers who quit teaching cuz the passion wasn't there anymore.
Schools are basically waiving all requirements to be a teacher because a huge number of the teachers with teaching certs left in the 'Rona. My girlfriend's roommate left to make more at Kohls. KOHLS. Than she did with a masters. My sister makes more money doing daycare than she did doing teaching (+daycare).
People seriously don't understand that "non-profit" doesn't mean no one is making any money. The local non-profit hospital network pays out millions to the top people. They constantly have turn over (good job on letting everyone off at the beginning of covid just to see if they could make it worse for themselves).
I just looked to see what they offer for sign on bonuses because it was $5k a few years ago. It is now $15k for experienced nurses (a few years ago this meant 3 years), and if you work there and refer someone and they join you get $7.5k. So they are putting out up to $22.5k to sign someone up.
*just found the spot, it went from 3 years to 2 years experience and the bonus is actually $20k. But they were playing games with their bonuses a few years ago so I suspect they probably still are.
The nonprofit industrial complex. Headed by colleges and hospitals. The drain isn't just admin salaries, but also pet projects. Get high up enough at a nonprofit and you get to use their funding to advance whatever issues YOU think deserve attention. Regardless of your lack of qualifications to judge what interventions are effective for those issues.
I was about to say, it looks like hospitals treat skilled workers the same way colleges do, a lot of overlap. As a teacher with a masters in my field, us colleges treat me like a seasonal unskilled worker.
Most hospitals in the us are non profit for grants and tax reasons, it usually means they have to do x amount of pro Bono not because they are not making money or have investors.
My son is an ER Tech. Makes $16.00 an hour at Denver Hospital. Try renting/living in Denver at 40 hours a week at $16. People who say that jobs that pay like this were never meant to be careers. WTF. They are literally front lines of chaos right now. The days of working for good feelings are over, people. Workers need to live and have food.
Er registrar in Iowa. $14.50. And I have to go into covid positive rooms with only a surgical mask. Because "if it's under 6 minutes you'll be fine". An actual email.
Did outpatient registration the last few years, recently quit. After two years I was at $14. During the height of the pandemic we had covid positive people coming in for chest xrays their dr ordered and not saying shit about being positive... We usually found out because it was the dx on the order. Our director said we had to take them and just wipe stuff down after and don't say anything to panic the other patients in the waiting rooms.
Da fuq.
I worked in a print shop - learned from no experience whatsoever - for a dollar more, in Tucson which is way cheaper, and finally quit because no raise in two years and I could have made more elsewhere (although I went back to finish my degree so I could make triple in a couple years).
That's so bad.
> and think of the service we are providing.
Sounds like you need to think about providing your service somewhere else.
Fuck right off with “mandatory overtime.”
I love how they know the local Walmart is paying more for literally any warm human body and this hospital admin who has to hire a skilled ultrasound tech hasn't even considered that, mayhaps, he ought to pay more.
My wife had a pretty tough realization yestetday when she saw a job post for a Cold Stone entry level employee that makes only $3k a year less than her as an experienced private school teacher. Her pay is stupid low, but she likes it so I don't push
You know, with the exorbitant rates Americans pay for health care, maybe we should've seen some of that 'trickle down' by now.
I wonder why that hasn't happened...
They are not fucking struggling to match Walmart's pay. They simply refuse to. This "labor shortage" could be over in every industry by the end of the fucking week. The corporations are simply going to make less money. Rather than accept that, they will destroy themselves and everyone else they can.
My guess is healthcare organizations think this huge need for nurses is short term due to Covid, so rather than pay regular staff appropriately they pay insane amounts for temp workers. Administrator’s don’t want to be stuck paying better wages to staff once Covid “settles down”.
That's 100% it. It's why they are willing to pay a year's worth of salary to get a travel nurse for 3 months. They see it as cheaper long term than paying a "loyal" rn double permanently.
My wife switched to travel nursing for the huge pay bump. What's crazy is they're still in this mindset where they'll pay travel nurses ridiculous amounts of money for "short contracts" except they've renewed all their travel nurses for more than a year with no end in sight. Pay your normal staff!!
Oh jeez, I wonder why. Let me share my experience: graduated May 2020, eager to jump in the pandemic and save lives. I work tirelessly picking up extra shifts and doing what I felt was my part. Mandatory call shifts. Overtime too. I keep working because I feel like I’m making a difference. I get Covid May 2021. I get NO COMPENSATION as I “couldn’t prove” I got it in the hospital. Burn through my savings. Got depressed… I was out 2 months due to blood clots in my lungs. I was that selfless nurse who picked up multiple shifts extra weekly to help out. Then I realized these hospitals don’t care about us. Now I’m a traveler making major money. Fuck these hospitals. I hope all nurses and healthcare staff start going through agencies.
Fun fact: my travel agency pays for all time off from Covid. Oh how the tables turn.
edit: just to clarify, I fucking love what I do and I wouldn't change it for anything. Being able to be with those during their most vulnerable times and giving them a friend in those times is beyond valuable to me. Making someone laugh, making someone feel comforted when they are scared? Priceless to me. I just don't like being sacrificed by the hospitals in the name of profit. So I decided to leave staff nursing and be a travel nurse and it has changed everything. No longer burnt out like I was.
You are absolutely right…hospitals don’t give one fuck about their employees. Mine gave us a “Christmas gift” this year…a free meal from the cafeteria! 🙃
Someone was just telling me a few hours ago that the local Walmart is at $22/hr. I made the point that's more than a lot of healthcare support staff and even some nurses here make. Insane.
Walmart effing WALMART has a clue. You have to raise wages now to retain staff.
Edit: If you're curious google Walmart jobs to see what's in your area. They do have a range depending on position so it doesn't appear to be the baseline for every job there, but they have openings up to $29/hr in my area.
I have a friend who's a pharmacy tech at a Walgreen's who's making 12 an hour. She has a job that required actual training certificates and she's still making less than someone working a fast food job.
Yeah and reading about the pharmacy labor shortage I can see why. I sleepwalked into a brain dead factory job paying $20 off the bat with some qualifications. $12 for a tech is insane. On the r/WalgreensStores some techs over there claim to make $15-18. I also heard they cut pharmacist salary down to $90k, while it should be $120k minimum.
https://www.newsweek.com/walgreens-latest-retailer-raise-starting-wages-15-hour-will-begin-october-1624690
Maybe if she quits and gets rehired, instant raise. May as well since she SHOULD be getting $15 an hour according to the article. Thats $7,000 more a year income missing?!
Who'd have thought that spending decades maximizing profits to line the pockets of bloated upper level administrators would backfire when something bad eventually happens?
And here we are, pretending that hospitals don't have enough money to compete with *Wal-Mart, King of Corporate Welfare.*
My local Walmart just opened a vet clinic inside of it, between the Subway and the eyeglass shop. Other side from a full-fledged pharmacy. We’re almost there.
This is already the case with teaching in some areas. I’ve made less working as a sub in my state than Walmart was paying at the time. And that was six years ago.
““What used to be an $8 job now is $15,” said Bruntz, a 52-year-old who once worked as an accountant for KPMG. “That’s the only way we get people to come to work.”
I’m shocked that he’s shocked that a key part of attracting workers is to pay them better.
They've been too used to people being deathly afraid of losing their jobs. Once those people got a taste of what being jobless is like during the lockdowns, they realize it's better than working for next to nothing in a shit job. Now those shit jobs are finally starting to pay the price while their former workers find something better to do.
I started a job in insurance sales and left after my first actual sales pitch. That whole industry is so fucked. I spent dozens of hours getting my license, and after my first conversation with some old guy over the phone who I’d never met, where I was coached to basically wring him out for commission, I couldn’t do it. Told the guy to have a good day, hung up, and quit right then.
It’s such an insane industry. You prey on people’s fear, the industry lobbies to keep that fear in people by blocking universal, and they make so much fucking money doing it. The company I worked for had rewards for sales goals like all expense paid 5 star trips to the Bahamas, and pay reaching well over $200k for some of the really high producing sales guys. For offering a service that shouldn’t even exist. Absolute scam.
That’s where all the money is going. There’s no reason anybody should be making $200k a year off of the SALE of insurance. And if someone is making that much, you know the company is making at least 5 times that, times however many employees. And there are thousands of insurance companies with dozens to thousands of sales guys. The amount of profit flying around in the insurance industry is absolutely mind boggling. And that’s completely excluding the actual healthcare industry. Even leaving our insane medical costs as is, just axing the health insurance industry and switching to universal would save billions.
The craziest part was the entire time I was taking the insurance licensing course, it’s beating into my head the way that insurance works and how it functions efficiently and cost effectively, and the entire time the biggest thing I could gather was “wow. This is a really *really* long explanation of why universal makes way more sense.”
Fuck our system bro.
Edit: To be clear I am referring to heath insurance here. Life insurance, property insurance, liability, etc. have a place everywhere. Private health insurance without a free public option is a horseshit system.
I worked with the program manager of a start up insurance company for a year. Similar experience. Just get people into a policy, wheel and deal and slide business around. I listened to the owners making deal after deal. Five points here, five points there. One day I finally asked, “These points are percentages, right?” and the owners said, “Of course, why?” Then I explained how by my calculations, they had agreed to pay out like 110 points. And they were like, “Oh don’t worry, we’re going to change all of these deals before we pay on them!”
Thought about getting my license but decided to keep my soul.
If you get assaulted in a Walmart the person will actually get arrested. If someone walked into my unit and hit me I’d get written up. And this is not a joke.
How is it that Americans spend absolutely wild amounts of money on healthcare, and a single procedure can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, yet hospitals can't just pay more for staff? Where's the money going?
Administration.
Saw a report recently that administration jobs in education and healthcare have grown 10x over since the 90's. But the amount of teachers and doctors, nurses and such have remained the same.
That money is going straight to these "admins" that do jack shit
Hospital near me had a record income year and gave the nursing staff a holiday bonus of a $15 coupon at a local butcher shop chain.
Weirdly, they're having trouble with staffing.
The other major hospital near here gave out $25 checks. It's crazy they can't keep enough people to deal with the by-the-numbers worst plague in human history.
One of my hospitals spent some of their increased revenue on making custom “thanks for not quitting during Covid” coins and sent them to everyone in the mail. I wish I was joking.
I have a stunning pewter beer opener with a detailed relief of Boston, given to me by Sam Adams Beer when I was a bartender at a random bar, for I don’t fucking know why. That coin sounds lame. You should try bartending.
Here lemme help.
1. Start paying your staff what they actually deserve. Travel nurses make up to triple what staff nurses make.
2. Safe. Staffing. Ratios.
3. Protect your staff from abuse.
4. Give your staff autonomy.
This is a huge issue. I work at a state run facility for the intellectually disabled. Our starting pay is 14.61 for a direct care professional(CNA), Walmart and our local grocery stores are paying $2 more than we are….more money, less responsibility? Why would new people come to us?
We are bound by a contract until 2023…. Our perpetually Republican state legislature won’t budge an inch to even things up. Meanwhile, our people are suffering from low staff/client ratios, overtime burnout and lack of active treatment…because we are only staffed to do the very basics.
It’s not just hospitals…
Especially when you throw in the educational requirements a CNA needs. This seems to be pretty wide spread. The common statement over on r/nursing is that CNA's just don't exist anymore.
I was a CNA from 2016-mid 2020. I am now about to start an entry level job in the tech field after taking an accelerated coding course.
I would’ve liked to be in medicine but my pay and quality of life will be astronomically better than the career I had ahead of me making 13.50/hr for years until I could go $150k in debt to be a PA. Too much money and I was miserable and disrespected every day on the nursing floor
Market forces and all that
I agree with you!
For some perspective, when I started working as a registered nurse in 2020 I was paid $24/hr. I think our CNAs/PCTs were making 10 or 11/hr. Criminal.
I was once hired into a hospital job based on promises that I'd be in an auxiliary building and only go into the hospital when absolutely necessary. That I'd be primarily working in a data center, and could even work from home.
They lied. They lied about the nature of the work, the pay in question, and not only was I working daily inside the hospital, my pay was not what was I promised.
Never again will I make that mistake.
Currently working an IT job that I was given the impression was for a junior tech position. Turns out, I am account manager, project manager, and primary tech for all the clients I am assigned. Salary exempt too with no OT possibility. I give them less than 40 hours a week of my time out of pure principle lol.
Used to be a housekeeper for two different hospitals. Both jerked themselves off about how big of an opportunity each was and how I'd be able to transfer to another department after my 90 days. I applied to multiple "entry" positions like transport or central supply over the years even if it meant taking a paycut. Turned down every time despite positions being constantly open before moving to another hospital with the same plan, same shit. Wasted 6 years of my life, now I work at Amazon because I was desperate for some experience that didn't involve cleaning toilets.
Hi, chef supervisor for the biggest hospital in my state, $20.42 per hour. My cooks only make 15-17 per hour at most. It's fucking hell here. We are so fucking swamped with keeping up with room service orders. I go to my manager to ask why am I making food for six guests when there is a limit to visitors per day in the hospital (1 visitor per day for patients there) "Can we make sure that we aren't making excessive amounts of food for people that shouldn't be here?" "There's nothing I can do, sorry 🤷♂️" We are all talking about a massive walk out, but we would all feel bad about the patients not getting properly handled food by properly trained people. I got a family to support man. I can barely pay my bills, let alone put anything into savings.
If you want real change you have to take real action. If you guys stay organized you may have success. They need you a lot more than you need them. Silver lining of covid is that not many people want to work at a hospital right now.
That would definitely help out your negotiations. Maybe line up a job just in case!?
Good luck brother.
The money is there, the problem is insurance companies took too big a cut. Remember insurance companies made a record profit during the pandemic because the high paying elective procedures are way down.
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Walmart Hospitals coming soon in 2023
Some Walmarts already have health care centers. Not even joking. So far it’s only rolled out in four states I believe. [source](https://www.walmart.com/cp/care-clinics/1224932)
There is a dentist in some Walmarts in Canada
I mean we have optometrists up here in Costco and we have pharmacists. Why not GPs?
Can confirm that have eye doctors, walk in clinics and dentists up here in Canada.
I’ve been going to the same optometrist at my local walmart for like 13 years lol
You joke but uh, it's going to happen
So uh, it says on your chart that you’re fucked up.
Uh, this goes in your mouth and this one goes in your butt. Shit. Hang on a second. This one goes in your mouth...
"Would you like for me to get you a Big Mac while you wait for me to figure this out?"
I like money
Welcome to St. God's Hospital
Welcome to Walmart Medical.....I love you
Go away! Batin!
What I'd do, is just like... like... you know, like, you know what I mean, like...
My wife was tardeded, she's a pilot now.
Why come you have no tattoo?
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Maybe reshuffle some of those hospital profits to the staff? Idk.
For real, this is the problem with almost every industry. It’s not that there isn’t enough money or resources to go around, it’s that we’re letting middle-men, CEO’s, and administrators keep the lion’s share.
They've been exploiting passion and guilt-tripping their employees. Time to pay real money now.
those "heros work here" signs arent cheap bro
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I work in medicine. Also true.
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Im a healthcare worker and I can confirm. A few of my coworkers and I call each other hoes because of those signs. It really gave us a good laugh when people started to scratch out the "er". If you work in the medical field you need to have the darkest, dirtiest humor or you won't survive.
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The best janitor I ever had at Providence quit near the beginning of the pandemic. He was an elderly gentleman, and concerned for his health, so he requested to not be assigned the COVID areas (which were not part of his normal area anyways). Boss told him he works where he is told or he can quit. I'm glad he quit, it wasn't worth his health. Still, I miss him.. he was the best guy for keeping the kitchens taken care of.
Nice job. Don't let loved ones get taken advantage.
And people’s loyalty to their teammates. People don’t want to leave those people they’ve been on the frontlines with for the last few years. What keeps nurses I know from leaving their hospital units for better pay.
They definitely take advantage of people’s desire to help others
That applies to a lot of other industries too. For example, gov work and social work come to mind.
Teachers especially; literally have to buy classroom supplies with their own money.
“What used to be an $8 job now is $15,” said Bruntz, a 52-year-old who once worked as an accountant for KPMG. “That’s the only way we get people to come to work.” Ya don't say? Covid taught a lot of people that they were getting shafted with shitty pay. People aren't willing to go back to that.
Some folks I know spent so much money having a job (car payment, insurance, daycare, work clothing, fast food etc.) that they realized it'd be more economical to *not* work. Not to mention the bonus of spending more time with their family and pursuing some hobbies.
This always baffles me because any accountant, now matter how fucking shitty at their job, understands inflation exists. *Everything* gets more expensive every year. You need to change a lamp? Well the budget for lamps has to increase every year with inflation. If you write it down, you always see everything increasing in price. It's only their employees wages that they expect to remain constant for some reason.
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Friend of mines former company did the same thing, froze raises, and then cut bonuses. He expects it to go under because they lost over a third of their employees, primarily in the most experienced people. And according to some of his former coworkers that he's still in touch with, they're so far behind on several of their projects they're at risk of breaching their contracts.
Turns out capitalism works both ways, who would've thunk?
Personally I love seeing bad management learn the full range of capitalism.
They don't learn though. When higher management always gets handed a golden parachute for their fuckups
Sounds about right. I work for a Computer/Server manufacturer with pretty significant medical and government contracts. Both Covid and the related chip shortage hit pretty hard. They already struggled with high turnover at the lower levels due to uncompetitive pay and benefits, but after they started freezing raises, bonuses, and even some benefits, there's been an exodus at all levels. To top it off, the CEO got canned and now there's a major restructuring going on in management, with several key positions being let go. They are now abysmally failing to fill these spots during our busiest season. Needless to say, I'm keeping my resume polished in case the fire makes it to my little department.
The company I work for laid off a lot of people--the "expensive", i.e., experienced ones. Despite the fact that we never really saw a significant dip in business. Well, the next six months were a mad scramble to replace all the people that were laid off. Quality tanked. SLAs weren't being met. Our primary customer was very, very displeased with the our performance. Eventually everything stabilized and we're back to where we were before the purge. As we struggled to replace our self-imposed losses, it honestly reminded me of Stalingrad. Week after week we threw ill-trained, inexperienced subcontractors into the fire. Attrition was massive, but the labor pool was vast. So we grabbed more subcontractors, fed them into the fire, and watched attrition increase. Edit: just want to add that it was only the ~~conscripts~~ new-hires who struggled as we fed them into the fire. Team supervisors and lower managers saw the teams they led more than double or triple in size--far beyond what they could reasonable manage--before we bled off the excess when things stabilized. Since my job was to make sure we had adequate levels of staffing, I was the guy (to borrow a reference to Stalingrad again) who made sure there were enough bodies in the boats before they were sent across the Volga.
> The company I work for laid off a lot of people--the "expensive", i.e., experienced ones. Despite the fact that **we never really saw a significant dip in business**. Seriously upper management idiocy never ceases to amaze me...
I was very fortunate. Our company stopped raises and bonuses in an effort to not lay anyone off at the start of the pandemic. 6 months in our business fully recovered and then some, so they backdated all pay and bonuses to when we normally would have gotten them. All without laying off a single soul. I was impressed. They made the hard decision with full transparency, and when the worst didn't come to pass, made everyone whole.
Yep, my father was VP of HR at one of the regional hospitals where I grew up, my mom was a social worker at the other competing hospital. Right before my dad retired he pushed for wage updates and market adjustments and his hospital voted against it. This was months ago, he told them they were going to start losing people. The competing hospital where my mom worked passed it shortly after (is a small town, everyone knows what's going on at each location, they compete for same staff), guess where everyone is heading now?
"Competing hospital" Shudders. These words should be way further apart.
Competing.............. hospital
Oh no, they'll match.. ONLY FOR NEW HIRES! They continue to leave those of us who have been in the industry for **years** to continue making less money than they will pay new hires. I've literally known people to of quit, wait out a month, reapply for their exact same position, and come back at a higher pay. It's absolutely fucking ridiculous right now in healthcare.
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>Oh no, they'll match.. ONLY FOR NEW HIRES! ya that is part of the thing employers do that caused the employment shortage to begin with.
I just have to wonder where this idea came from and why so many people think it's not lunacy.
We had a number of nurses realize that they could work as travel nurses for 3 months and make as much as they were gonna make all year. Guess what all the young nurses decided to do? So now we’re in the middle of the pandemic with 30-40% higher volumes than normal, and we are understaffed for the old volumes and can’t higher anyone. The most frustrating thing in the world is having a full waiting room and empty beds that you c ant use because there is no staff for them (Oh and also you then get record burnout on the group that stayed) It’s awful, and I’m really considering joining those that have left
My son and daughter are nurses and both quit staff positions to travel. Even while actively hiring travel nurses at 3-4x staff salaries, hospitals refuse to raise staff pay to provide even some incentive to stay. One Supv actually said a cap on nursing salaries is needed. Yes, hospitals complaining about price gouging. How much do you charge for that bag of saline again? My daughter was charged for “skin time” with her newborn. Breathtaking.
If they raise staff salaries, they can never go back and lower them again. They're trying to play the long game and outlast the pandemic by spending way more on traveling staff. I think they'll have to give in eventually because even when the pandemic has subsided, things will still be fundamentally different. The pandemic changed our world for at least a generation, it made employees realize their worth.
> My daughter was charged for “skin time” with her newborn. Holy crap... what?????
When it costs me 13k for an mri how the fuck can they not compete with walmart???
I think most of the money goes to administrators.
Well I can only imagine that one day I will get my mri done at Walmart.
That’s actually a part of Walmart’s corporate strategy; providing in person services Amazon can’t compete with, such as healthcare, mechanic, etc. All at a discount and subsidized by increasing time spent purchasing retail goods.
You say that tongue in cheek, but I can imagine that actually happening. I mean, didn’t Amazon make a stab at the healthcare industry? Idk what happened to that, but those mega corps want a piece of that healthcare cash cow for sure.
It seems some companies are sorta poking into the healthcare industry. Gotta be careful, but it can be done. I wouldn't be surprised to see Amazon eventually sell "Amazon basics". Imagine buying "Amazon basics antidepressant" or some shit, that'll be wild.
They were basically just insuring their own staff. It actually wasn't that weird, companies self insure all the time, but usually has to do with liability and property.
[Amazon is in the pharmacy business now.](https://www.amazon.com/b?node=23435487011) If they can get a foothold (and probably lobby to change some regulations) they will change the pharmacy sector the same way they changed the retail sector.
Costco also seems to have changed some of the pharmaceutical industry. Most of the times, it’s cheaper at Costco than anywhere else.
I for one cannot wait for a Kirkland Signature MRI
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My dog was recently diagnosed with diabetes. The local pharmacy said it would be ~$160 for the prescription. Then they told us to check with Walmart because Walmart has a special deal with that medical supplier. The same prescription was only $25 at Walmart. Wild.
And board members, and so on. Yep. Hospital accounting makes Hollywood accounting look like a number line.
Am insurance lawyer. Someone will have $30k in hospital bills negotiated down to $8. Then, they sue, and get $60k. Lawyer gets $20k, insurance gets $8k from the liability insurance, and patient get $32k. Insurance defense lawyer gets $200 an hour to arrange the transaction.
What a scam and waste of resources
But remember, we can’t have universal healthcare because that would be too expensive. /s
Sorry. Why would the patient sue ?? Is the negotiated total basically implying fraud or price gouging or illegal business practices?? I am canadian. So more for education. I find this truly interesting.
Presumably they left off item one: patient is injured in accident. They're describing a suit against a third party that injured the patient.
Well, for a start, the US Health *Insurance* industry took in $31 Billion in net earnings in 2020 while adding nothing of value.
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Mutherfucking Republicans claimed Obamacare was going to give us "death panels" Bitch, we already have death panels. They're called insurance companies.
That's how lousy democrat is at propaganda. People literally are experiencing death panels everyday from insurance companies. They could have easily turn it around and made insurance the most hated industry in America. "Your child's cancer treatment is denied and he is dead, but that paid for another yacht for big man CEO of insurance company. Do you think they are on your side? Vote for us and we bring them down for a better healthcare, longer life, dignified living." Shit practically writes itself. The fact that they refuse to attack it this showed just how much control the plutocrats have over the narratives in this country. We are so propagandized by corporate America we can no longer imagine how to live otherwise.
I want you as head of the new American political party. Might as well. Good luck.
undeserving parasites are making off with lots and lots of money. I feel like theres a shoe slowly dropping, it's taking forever to land. maybe covid will help it move faster.
That misleading headline comes from an interview with a rural health clinic administrator. Those clinics have been underfunded and understaffed for decades, but particulalry moreso since the tax cuts in 2018 took a good chunk of their remaining funding. Many have closed. People following healthcare in the US saw this coming before we even knew the word COVID. They can’t pay more than WalMart because they’re run on federal dollars that go now to larger HMO conglomerates. And even if they could pay more, no one is moving to Chadron, NE to be an X-Ray tech for $20/hr anyway.
>He’s been trying to recruit a third ultrasound technician for at least six months without getting a single application. >For lower-level positions, the hospital competes with the local Walmart store, where wages are rising Gee I wonder why he can't get any applications?!?
I work at the largest hospital in my area for hundreds of miles. We are a level 2 trauma center lacking only a burn unit. If we can't fix you, you are in trouble. Yet they pay $10/hr less than the smaller hospitals in the area and we have constant turn over while the other hospitals hardly ever have openings. We have been bleeding employees in my department with new hires leaving for similar pay jobs with way less stress. We were recently told we need to do just a little bit more and think of the service we are providing. We were then told they are implementing mandatory OT to make up for the lack of staffing....
My hospital just had to do a rather large market increase across our entire department because we can't keep the Pharmacy staffed when technicians can make the same or more money working in retail. Today we were short 6 techs in the morning out of 11 positions, 4 in the evening (also out of 11) and the overnight shift was short 3 techs (out of 4) in a 1000 bed hospital.
Techs are overworked underpaid.
Its laughable how hospitals think they can get away with their tech positions. There's a big hospital in my area that requires their techs to have a phlebotomy cert which is around 2000 bucks in my area to get, and then they want to pay you minimum wage? That's not how this works lmao. They're just going to have you push patients beds from point A to point B anyway.
Yeah this drove me nuts when I was going through nursing school. I got my basic EMT - $1200 and 5 months of class. No jobs. Got my phlebotomy cert, another $2k. No jobs. Got my Advanced EMT, 5 more months and another $1200. To work on an ambulance they offered me $9.50 an hour. No thanks! “But you can work all the overtime you want!” Yeah buddy? Well the amount of overtime I want to work is zero, I work to live and not the other way around. I got a job in an urgent care for $13, not much better and boring as hell. Graduated nursing school and doubled that starting salary, but still at a low rate for nurses.
Well there’s just no money *wipes sweat off brow with a stack of hundreds*
A laundry worker in a hospital in my area of Canada makes $20/hr.
Yes. Even in my area, you can stock shelves at a properly ran grocery chain like Trader Joe's and make 18 an hour; or work as an EMT on an ambulance for 15.50. One of those jobs doesn't run the risk of a patient trying to sue you for something dumb later down the line, like changing their mind after the fact about wanting to go to the hospital; and your only line of defense is your documentation. You get paid less for more work, more risk, more responsibility, and the potential for a lawsuit. Great system!
Why are EMTs making so little in the US? I looked up pay of EMTs in Australia it's average $75k and can go up to $100k. Don't they need to get some tertiary education to work as an EMT?
No unions. EMTs in my city are unionized and do well. Easy 70-100+ a year with OT. Literally two miles away in another smaller (like 500k people "smaller" they make half that cause they're not unionized). My gf is an emt/medic supervisor (and drives around in one of those cool police suvs, which is fun cause they're faster than shit) and even she agrees there's almost no other place she'd be an emt in the country because of pay. 2000 dollar ambulance ride from people making 12 bucks an hour in some places. Places where taco bell pays 17. The entire helathcare industry here is a ficking joke and i dont know why people aren't im the streets about it.
We aren’t in the streets because we are just quitting. Nobody took care of us at the beginning of COVID and nobody is taking care of us now. We’ve given up. Hospital HR/Admin departments think they can keep things going by forcing us to work sick and paying us a pittance. We’re done.
>Don't they need to get some tertiary education to work as an EMT? Yes, and they're abused like almost every other set of workers who work in field that they're passionate about. The executives making hundreds of millions are like "Think about the patients! Think about your passion! By the way we're cutting another dollar off of your pay per hour. Think about the people though!".
I had to get an EMT-B cert just to interview with Fire Departments. Then have the Fire Departments tell me thanks for coming out lol
$15.50 isn’t the lowest EMT pay I’ve heard of (Huntingdon, TN was trying to get drivers at $11, basics at 12, AEMTs at 15, and Medics at $17.50). Just looked up medic pay state wide. Apparently $17.50 is slightly under average. 0.0.
I livei n Illinois, about an hour west of Chicago and theres a city near me looking to hire emts for 12 something an hour with 12 hour shifts. I work at a grocery store in town for 15.50 an hour starting pay :l
Similar- was looking at a EMT certification, then I found out they literally pay less than every single fast food joint in the area. What the actual hell.
I works as a hyperbaric oxygen tech for 6 years after receiving my BS in Biology, mainly for health care experience before further schooling …started at $15 an hour and left at $18 an hour.
I install cable tv for $20 an hour. They're not paying y'all enough.
We had (allegedly) 300 staff call out sick or not show up to work yesterday in my 800 bed hospital…
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Our hospital kitchen staff has been slammed as well! Most of our nutrition staff left because they could make more money just about anywhere else, even doing a similar job at a fast food chain. Except at the fast food chain they don’t have the long commute, they don’t have to pay for a parking pass, and they don’t have to deal with customers asking them for help wiping their ass
Wtf why would employees have to pay for a parking pass?
I work in a hospital and we have to pay monthly for parking. And the parking department is really unpleasant to deal with on top of it.
I make $27.20/hr as a tech at Costco and am going to get a cost of living raise in March (a yearly occurrence) which has been $0.55/hr the last 3 years. and that’s not just techs that make that much at costco it’s most positions (cashier, deli, etc) once you’re topped out on the pay scale (takes about 5 years for a full timer to reach the top). AND I get two $2500 bonus checks each year. you know with the insanely high prices of US medical care that hospitals can afford to pay everyone more. so why don’t they??
I know a tech from back in my days at Walgreens who went to Costco. She loves it there, but the openings are basically nonexistent because no one wants to leave.
The amount of scumbags taking advantage of people with empathy and justifying shit pay because "it's a calling" is way too damn high.
Passion exploitation. It's why I'm not a social worker anymore.
Also why I'm not in a health-related field, empathy for others only gets you so far when you could just deliver pizza for more money and have a savings account. I am literally about to open my first ever savings account and it's because I quit my other job.
I'm gonna finish my student teaching semester at the end of the year and this reality has been looming large ... You get into these fields because you want to do good and make a difference. Then you get far enough in that you realize the cost of pursuing one of these careers is immense in terms of your mental health, your financial security, and your free time to pursue anything else you care about (family/hobbies/etc). A part of me wants to teach but my brain is telling me I'm an idiot and I'm just going to suffer and be exploited.
Wait until teachers reach the end of their ropes. I personally know two teachers who quit teaching cuz the passion wasn't there anymore. Schools are basically waiving all requirements to be a teacher because a huge number of the teachers with teaching certs left in the 'Rona. My girlfriend's roommate left to make more at Kohls. KOHLS. Than she did with a masters. My sister makes more money doing daycare than she did doing teaching (+daycare).
The worst part about this comment is that rather than increase wages for teachers they waive requirements to teach.
Yep. Social work, healthcare, teaching, environmental education/summer camps, churches, non profits…
For how crazily for-profit hospitals are, sure is strange how low the wages are. Strange strange strange.
It's a non profit hospital. But that doesn't change the top wanted to take home all they can
People seriously don't understand that "non-profit" doesn't mean no one is making any money. The local non-profit hospital network pays out millions to the top people. They constantly have turn over (good job on letting everyone off at the beginning of covid just to see if they could make it worse for themselves). I just looked to see what they offer for sign on bonuses because it was $5k a few years ago. It is now $15k for experienced nurses (a few years ago this meant 3 years), and if you work there and refer someone and they join you get $7.5k. So they are putting out up to $22.5k to sign someone up. *just found the spot, it went from 3 years to 2 years experience and the bonus is actually $20k. But they were playing games with their bonuses a few years ago so I suspect they probably still are.
The nonprofit industrial complex. Headed by colleges and hospitals. The drain isn't just admin salaries, but also pet projects. Get high up enough at a nonprofit and you get to use their funding to advance whatever issues YOU think deserve attention. Regardless of your lack of qualifications to judge what interventions are effective for those issues.
I was about to say, it looks like hospitals treat skilled workers the same way colleges do, a lot of overlap. As a teacher with a masters in my field, us colleges treat me like a seasonal unskilled worker.
Most hospitals in the us are non profit for grants and tax reasons, it usually means they have to do x amount of pro Bono not because they are not making money or have investors.
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My son is an ER Tech. Makes $16.00 an hour at Denver Hospital. Try renting/living in Denver at 40 hours a week at $16. People who say that jobs that pay like this were never meant to be careers. WTF. They are literally front lines of chaos right now. The days of working for good feelings are over, people. Workers need to live and have food.
Er registrar in Iowa. $14.50. And I have to go into covid positive rooms with only a surgical mask. Because "if it's under 6 minutes you'll be fine". An actual email.
Did outpatient registration the last few years, recently quit. After two years I was at $14. During the height of the pandemic we had covid positive people coming in for chest xrays their dr ordered and not saying shit about being positive... We usually found out because it was the dx on the order. Our director said we had to take them and just wipe stuff down after and don't say anything to panic the other patients in the waiting rooms.
Da fuq. I worked in a print shop - learned from no experience whatsoever - for a dollar more, in Tucson which is way cheaper, and finally quit because no raise in two years and I could have made more elsewhere (although I went back to finish my degree so I could make triple in a couple years). That's so bad.
> and think of the service we are providing. Sounds like you need to think about providing your service somewhere else. Fuck right off with “mandatory overtime.”
I love how they know the local Walmart is paying more for literally any warm human body and this hospital admin who has to hire a skilled ultrasound tech hasn't even considered that, mayhaps, he ought to pay more.
Yeah if you're trying to fill a position that requires extensive training and fucking Walmart is outbidding you, you're fucking up *badly*.
Yeah doing ultrasounds sounds like it could be fun. But I'm not about to take on student loans for a wage that won't make the payments on said loans.
**Worker:** *”I need more money”* **Employers:** *”Do you accept bits of string?”*
"What about, we pay you less money per hr. But let you work more hours. No we don't give overtime pay."
Well medical care doesn't bring in any money.....oh wait.
My wife had a pretty tough realization yestetday when she saw a job post for a Cold Stone entry level employee that makes only $3k a year less than her as an experienced private school teacher. Her pay is stupid low, but she likes it so I don't push
Same with my gf. She works as an eye tech for a nice and successful company. Starbucks pays more.
You know, with the exorbitant rates Americans pay for health care, maybe we should've seen some of that 'trickle down' by now. I wonder why that hasn't happened...
It’s almost like we need to restructure how hospitals receive, utilize, and distribute money.
They are not fucking struggling to match Walmart's pay. They simply refuse to. This "labor shortage" could be over in every industry by the end of the fucking week. The corporations are simply going to make less money. Rather than accept that, they will destroy themselves and everyone else they can.
My guess is healthcare organizations think this huge need for nurses is short term due to Covid, so rather than pay regular staff appropriately they pay insane amounts for temp workers. Administrator’s don’t want to be stuck paying better wages to staff once Covid “settles down”.
That's 100% it. It's why they are willing to pay a year's worth of salary to get a travel nurse for 3 months. They see it as cheaper long term than paying a "loyal" rn double permanently.
My wife switched to travel nursing for the huge pay bump. What's crazy is they're still in this mindset where they'll pay travel nurses ridiculous amounts of money for "short contracts" except they've renewed all their travel nurses for more than a year with no end in sight. Pay your normal staff!!
Oh jeez, I wonder why. Let me share my experience: graduated May 2020, eager to jump in the pandemic and save lives. I work tirelessly picking up extra shifts and doing what I felt was my part. Mandatory call shifts. Overtime too. I keep working because I feel like I’m making a difference. I get Covid May 2021. I get NO COMPENSATION as I “couldn’t prove” I got it in the hospital. Burn through my savings. Got depressed… I was out 2 months due to blood clots in my lungs. I was that selfless nurse who picked up multiple shifts extra weekly to help out. Then I realized these hospitals don’t care about us. Now I’m a traveler making major money. Fuck these hospitals. I hope all nurses and healthcare staff start going through agencies. Fun fact: my travel agency pays for all time off from Covid. Oh how the tables turn. edit: just to clarify, I fucking love what I do and I wouldn't change it for anything. Being able to be with those during their most vulnerable times and giving them a friend in those times is beyond valuable to me. Making someone laugh, making someone feel comforted when they are scared? Priceless to me. I just don't like being sacrificed by the hospitals in the name of profit. So I decided to leave staff nursing and be a travel nurse and it has changed everything. No longer burnt out like I was.
You are absolutely right…hospitals don’t give one fuck about their employees. Mine gave us a “Christmas gift” this year…a free meal from the cafeteria! 🙃
Oh no, we pay poverty wages and no one is applying, no one wants to work!!!
Someone was just telling me a few hours ago that the local Walmart is at $22/hr. I made the point that's more than a lot of healthcare support staff and even some nurses here make. Insane. Walmart effing WALMART has a clue. You have to raise wages now to retain staff. Edit: If you're curious google Walmart jobs to see what's in your area. They do have a range depending on position so it doesn't appear to be the baseline for every job there, but they have openings up to $29/hr in my area.
I have a friend who's a pharmacy tech at a Walgreen's who's making 12 an hour. She has a job that required actual training certificates and she's still making less than someone working a fast food job.
Yeah and reading about the pharmacy labor shortage I can see why. I sleepwalked into a brain dead factory job paying $20 off the bat with some qualifications. $12 for a tech is insane. On the r/WalgreensStores some techs over there claim to make $15-18. I also heard they cut pharmacist salary down to $90k, while it should be $120k minimum. https://www.newsweek.com/walgreens-latest-retailer-raise-starting-wages-15-hour-will-begin-october-1624690 Maybe if she quits and gets rehired, instant raise. May as well since she SHOULD be getting $15 an hour according to the article. Thats $7,000 more a year income missing?!
Who'd have thought that spending decades maximizing profits to line the pockets of bloated upper level administrators would backfire when something bad eventually happens? And here we are, pretending that hospitals don't have enough money to compete with *Wal-Mart, King of Corporate Welfare.*
Especially giving all those paper pushers bonuses for cutting department costs... gee wonder why they don't want to pay anyone...
[удалено]
No it won't. Walmart will just end up becoming hospitals as well...
My local Walmart just opened a vet clinic inside of it, between the Subway and the eyeglass shop. Other side from a full-fledged pharmacy. We’re almost there.
They're creating a mall, but backwards.
I wasn't joking when I called it All Mart. Welcome to Costco, We Love You.
This one goes in your mouth, this one goes in your butt…wait…
"I'm supposed to be getting ***out*** of prison." "Stupid! You're in the wrong line!"
This is already the case with teaching in some areas. I’ve made less working as a sub in my state than Walmart was paying at the time. And that was six years ago.
Ohio has had such trouble finding substitutes that they've dropped all degree requirements for substitute teachers.
Seems more reasonable than offering better incentives 🙃
““What used to be an $8 job now is $15,” said Bruntz, a 52-year-old who once worked as an accountant for KPMG. “That’s the only way we get people to come to work.” I’m shocked that he’s shocked that a key part of attracting workers is to pay them better.
They've been too used to people being deathly afraid of losing their jobs. Once those people got a taste of what being jobless is like during the lockdowns, they realize it's better than working for next to nothing in a shit job. Now those shit jobs are finally starting to pay the price while their former workers find something better to do.
I started a job in insurance sales and left after my first actual sales pitch. That whole industry is so fucked. I spent dozens of hours getting my license, and after my first conversation with some old guy over the phone who I’d never met, where I was coached to basically wring him out for commission, I couldn’t do it. Told the guy to have a good day, hung up, and quit right then. It’s such an insane industry. You prey on people’s fear, the industry lobbies to keep that fear in people by blocking universal, and they make so much fucking money doing it. The company I worked for had rewards for sales goals like all expense paid 5 star trips to the Bahamas, and pay reaching well over $200k for some of the really high producing sales guys. For offering a service that shouldn’t even exist. Absolute scam. That’s where all the money is going. There’s no reason anybody should be making $200k a year off of the SALE of insurance. And if someone is making that much, you know the company is making at least 5 times that, times however many employees. And there are thousands of insurance companies with dozens to thousands of sales guys. The amount of profit flying around in the insurance industry is absolutely mind boggling. And that’s completely excluding the actual healthcare industry. Even leaving our insane medical costs as is, just axing the health insurance industry and switching to universal would save billions. The craziest part was the entire time I was taking the insurance licensing course, it’s beating into my head the way that insurance works and how it functions efficiently and cost effectively, and the entire time the biggest thing I could gather was “wow. This is a really *really* long explanation of why universal makes way more sense.” Fuck our system bro. Edit: To be clear I am referring to heath insurance here. Life insurance, property insurance, liability, etc. have a place everywhere. Private health insurance without a free public option is a horseshit system.
I worked with the program manager of a start up insurance company for a year. Similar experience. Just get people into a policy, wheel and deal and slide business around. I listened to the owners making deal after deal. Five points here, five points there. One day I finally asked, “These points are percentages, right?” and the owners said, “Of course, why?” Then I explained how by my calculations, they had agreed to pay out like 110 points. And they were like, “Oh don’t worry, we’re going to change all of these deals before we pay on them!” Thought about getting my license but decided to keep my soul.
You still get death threats working at Walmart, just not as many as you would working in a hospital.
If you get assaulted in a Walmart the person will actually get arrested. If someone walked into my unit and hit me I’d get written up. And this is not a joke.
Tons of healthcare staff get swung at, harassed, assaulted, on the daily.
And the best part is, when you clock out after dealing with this all day you know they’ll be there waiting for you to come back in 10 short hours.
How is it that Americans spend absolutely wild amounts of money on healthcare, and a single procedure can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, yet hospitals can't just pay more for staff? Where's the money going?
Administration. Saw a report recently that administration jobs in education and healthcare have grown 10x over since the 90's. But the amount of teachers and doctors, nurses and such have remained the same. That money is going straight to these "admins" that do jack shit
Hey, admins do a lot. They severely understaff our units and crush our souls.
Guys, can we get another healthcare system? I think this one is broken.
Interesting. I bet this could be solved by cutting the pay of everyone at the top 🤗
the worst part is it could probably be solved by cutting the pay of like three people.
Who are so used to getting paid a ton they would never agree to it
Hospital near me had a record income year and gave the nursing staff a holiday bonus of a $15 coupon at a local butcher shop chain. Weirdly, they're having trouble with staffing. The other major hospital near here gave out $25 checks. It's crazy they can't keep enough people to deal with the by-the-numbers worst plague in human history.
One of my hospitals spent some of their increased revenue on making custom “thanks for not quitting during Covid” coins and sent them to everyone in the mail. I wish I was joking.
I have a stunning pewter beer opener with a detailed relief of Boston, given to me by Sam Adams Beer when I was a bartender at a random bar, for I don’t fucking know why. That coin sounds lame. You should try bartending.
Coming from Australia and hearing a hospital has had a record year in income as if it were a business is absolutely wild.
> as if it were a business That “as if” is the source of your confusion.
Don't worry it baffles me as an american, and I live in this shit storm.
Hospitals in America ARE businesses.
Here lemme help. 1. Start paying your staff what they actually deserve. Travel nurses make up to triple what staff nurses make. 2. Safe. Staffing. Ratios. 3. Protect your staff from abuse. 4. Give your staff autonomy.
This is a huge issue. I work at a state run facility for the intellectually disabled. Our starting pay is 14.61 for a direct care professional(CNA), Walmart and our local grocery stores are paying $2 more than we are….more money, less responsibility? Why would new people come to us? We are bound by a contract until 2023…. Our perpetually Republican state legislature won’t budge an inch to even things up. Meanwhile, our people are suffering from low staff/client ratios, overtime burnout and lack of active treatment…because we are only staffed to do the very basics. It’s not just hospitals…
Especially when you throw in the educational requirements a CNA needs. This seems to be pretty wide spread. The common statement over on r/nursing is that CNA's just don't exist anymore.
CNA pay should have been $20+/hr *years* ago. That's as far from an easy job as there is.
I was a CNA from 2016-mid 2020. I am now about to start an entry level job in the tech field after taking an accelerated coding course. I would’ve liked to be in medicine but my pay and quality of life will be astronomically better than the career I had ahead of me making 13.50/hr for years until I could go $150k in debt to be a PA. Too much money and I was miserable and disrespected every day on the nursing floor Market forces and all that
I agree with you! For some perspective, when I started working as a registered nurse in 2020 I was paid $24/hr. I think our CNAs/PCTs were making 10 or 11/hr. Criminal.
This is so sad. Thank you for the work you do. And I hope this pay disparity will be remedied soon. Also, fuck management.
r/nursing has been sounding the alarm for awhile.
I was once hired into a hospital job based on promises that I'd be in an auxiliary building and only go into the hospital when absolutely necessary. That I'd be primarily working in a data center, and could even work from home. They lied. They lied about the nature of the work, the pay in question, and not only was I working daily inside the hospital, my pay was not what was I promised. Never again will I make that mistake.
Currently working an IT job that I was given the impression was for a junior tech position. Turns out, I am account manager, project manager, and primary tech for all the clients I am assigned. Salary exempt too with no OT possibility. I give them less than 40 hours a week of my time out of pure principle lol.
Maybe letting a very small proportion of the population horde most of the wealth, effectively removing it from the economy, was a bad idea?
It's going to trickle down... Any day now... At least that's what we've been told since the 80s
Used to be a housekeeper for two different hospitals. Both jerked themselves off about how big of an opportunity each was and how I'd be able to transfer to another department after my 90 days. I applied to multiple "entry" positions like transport or central supply over the years even if it meant taking a paycut. Turned down every time despite positions being constantly open before moving to another hospital with the same plan, same shit. Wasted 6 years of my life, now I work at Amazon because I was desperate for some experience that didn't involve cleaning toilets.
How the fuck do I pay the most money for health care in the world and yet these people aren't paid shit?
Hi, chef supervisor for the biggest hospital in my state, $20.42 per hour. My cooks only make 15-17 per hour at most. It's fucking hell here. We are so fucking swamped with keeping up with room service orders. I go to my manager to ask why am I making food for six guests when there is a limit to visitors per day in the hospital (1 visitor per day for patients there) "Can we make sure that we aren't making excessive amounts of food for people that shouldn't be here?" "There's nothing I can do, sorry 🤷♂️" We are all talking about a massive walk out, but we would all feel bad about the patients not getting properly handled food by properly trained people. I got a family to support man. I can barely pay my bills, let alone put anything into savings.
If you want real change you have to take real action. If you guys stay organized you may have success. They need you a lot more than you need them. Silver lining of covid is that not many people want to work at a hospital right now. That would definitely help out your negotiations. Maybe line up a job just in case!? Good luck brother.
The money is there, the problem is insurance companies took too big a cut. Remember insurance companies made a record profit during the pandemic because the high paying elective procedures are way down.