Are nurses also customers?

Here is a unique perspective on nurses being treated as customers. Nurses are not customers you say. Well think again.

I have been working as a local agency and travel RN for about the last 4 years or so. Do I get treated like a customer? You bet I do? I staff local agencies in which their only source of revenue is from nurses generating income? No nurses equals NO revenue. They can have contracts coming out their ears form every facility in the area, but it they do not have nurses to fill the open slots, then they are literally holding a worthless pieces of paper. So if they want to hold on to nurses to bring in revenue, then they go the extra mile and treat you like a valued customer. The same is true of travel companies except most of them also staff other allied health positions as well, i.e. radiology, therapy, etc.

So you say yea, OK, I can see that, but here is where it really gets interesting. I am treated like a customer at the hospitals where I provide my services. Not only by management, but also in some ways by the staff nurses. Here are just a few of the examples. I for the most set the schedule that I want as far as how many days in a row or which days I am available to work. The regular staff is filled in around those way before the schedule has been finalized. On all but 1 or 2 of my 13 week travel assignments I have taken a week off during it and have even had scheduled off before and after it to extend my time off. At the same time the regular staff was complaining that their vacation requests were being denied. I am not normally giving the ****** assignments on a regular basis, I know every one needs a break and I do not mind having to take a turn. But in most cases those assignments never come my way and not because I am not capable of doing them it is just so I will continue to come back. Most of the time I am greeted with a thank you for coming when I arrive and also when I leave. I have received coupons for free meal and even tickets for something going on in town from the hospital. I have been occasion been treated as badly as regular staff or been taken advantage of by regular staff, but guess what? I do not go back and usually end up in a phone conversation with a manager asking why and receiving an apology.

The places that insist on treating local agency and travelers poorly soon find they can not get anyone to come in. We do a lot of sharing of information among us. So as a group. we learn to avoid certain places that are not nurse friendly especially to us.

Most of the experienced agency and travel nurses know that we are in fact customers. We are not any better nurses than most of the regular experienced nursing staff. We are not arrogant as it may appear. We actually know who is providing services to whom. We also know that we are income producers even though the hospital may not bill as such. They do pay out strictly on nursing time alone. You can believe that they recoup their costs in one way or the other. If it is to add on to a med cost, or a frequent test like a CT or bill a little more for a supply item. In the long run, the CEO walks away with just as much in his paycheck or more than he did the week or month before. So does everyone else in actual power at the facility.

Some nurses want to blame us for their lack of wage increases. They have heard < nursing is the highest cost expenditure in the operational budget or some other similar statement time and time again as an excuse as to why wages can not be increased or additional staff including ancillary and support staff can not be hired. This is not a reason this is a statement of fact only. In every facility this is the fact, but some hear this and thing say it is the reason they have to go with out.

If I have to bargain too much or if the facility I am offering my services too both agency and hospital alike refuse to bargain, then I simply say I think I will go somewhere else where they really need nurses.

Now this works for me and most of us because there are multiple hospitals and agencies in the area and I can travel when and where I want. It also works because of the nursing shortage as well. It also works because I am not willing to settle for less than I am worth as a nurse extending my services.

We are nurses and we are in high demand for the very knowledge and skills we can extend. Unfortunately many nurses do not value themselves too highly let alone see their selves as customers. So they continue to accept what ever is dished out to them. They have no control of their professional practice in any shape or form.

I was talking to a nurses about local agency at a dining table one day with around 10 other people listening in. She said, if we quit and go agency the hospital said they will not use us for a year. My response to her was so if even 30% percent of you left and went agency, then who would they replace you with. This was a isolated midsize town with only one hospital that was already short staff and actively recruiting. She could not answer my question and all I got was a blank stare and not just from her, but everyone else around.

So, yes nurses are customers but many sell themselves way to short even in the remotest of places