Benefits for a hospital RN

[rn in 3 years]

Please forgive me if this has been discussed before but I was wondering how good the benefits are for a hospital RN. Like, how much do you pay for health insurance? My husband works for the Post Office right now and we only pay - get this - $86.00 a month for a HMo plan for a family of 4! He will be quitting and buying an insurance agency w/ in the next few years (already has one lined up) and we would have to find another health insurance plan. I know we wil not be lucky enough to get it as cheap as we do now but I wanted to get a ball park figure of what to expect.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

It is totally dependent on where you work since each employer has it's own benefits in place. I've worked at places that offered no medical insurance at all (the nurses eventually went on strike), and others where I had only $20 to $40 a month deducted from my pay every two weeks. It is something you should ask about during any job interviews you have, so you know what the medical insurance offerings are before you accept a job. HMOs are very popular nowadays as well as PPOs and a lot of larger employers offer a choice of either. Every employer negotiates with the major medical insurance companies for the best group rate they can get and then decide how much they will pay and how much each employee will pay. Lately, the PPO insurance premiums have gone up very rapidly. Once your husband quits he will be eligible for 18 months of coverage under COBRA, but he will have to pay the full price of the monthly premium during those 18 months.

Other benefits you can expect are dental and eye coverage, life insurance, membership in a credit union, tuition reimbursement, and a lot of other little items each employer throws in. One place I worked at got a substantially discounted monthly rate for cell phone services for employees who wanted it. One of my friends worked at a hospital that provided a gasoline allowance to offset the price of gasoline. A number of employers will also give a uniform allowance to help you pay for your uniforms. I always liked the credit union benefits because once you are employed the credit unions are more liberal in granting car loans and mortgages at really reasonable rates.