Can a hospital make you repay the cost of training you if you quit?

mammac5 · Jul 9, 2010

Once you've signed a contract, you're committed. Unless of course you want to get an atty to argue that you signed it under duress, but that's likely to cost as much money as just paying the place what you owethem.

morphed · Jul 9, 2010

My hospital has a contract like that for one particularly lengthy (and expensive) specialty internship. People were taking advantage of the training and then leaving. So, they made the contract. Anyone taking the internship must stay for 2 years or repay some of the cost. So, I know that in my state at least, it can be done.
(The contract is not required for my hospital's other orientation and internship programs because they are less lengthy and expensive to run.)

What is the specialty that requires this contract?

LoveMyBugs, BSN, CNA, RN · Jul 9, 2010

The only hospital in my area that is offering a new grad internship has you sign a 3 page contract outling the rules and how they figure the cost of making you pay them back if you do not work for them for 2 years after the training is complete. If you sign you are bound, if you don't sign you are not considered for their program and out of 4 hospital systems in the area this is the only one willing to hire new grads so I signed.

sweetER · Jul 9, 2010

Most of the hospitals in my area are now having new grads sign contracts when they are hired, just so that if you leave before two years they can recoup some of the cost of your orientation/training period. If you don't want to sign a new grad contract, you're not going to be hired. Depending on the hospital, the contract may state that you must work on the same floor for the contract period or that you can only transfer to a similar unit within the contract period.

confusedRN2010 · Jul 9, 2010

but how do they physically make you pay? Do you get a bill? Do you get served with some kind of legal mumbo jumbo. I wonder who is on my side at work? I certainly don't feel comfortable going to HR or talking with risk management, they all are on the side of the hospital not me. The rumor around work is that no one really has to pay when it comes down to it but I won't believe that until it actually happens

fiveofpeep · Jul 9, 2010

its usually pro-rated and in installments.

elkpark · Jul 9, 2010

but how do they physically make you pay? Do you get a bill? Do you get served with some kind of legal mumbo jumbo. I wonder who is on my side at work? I certainly don't feel comfortable going to HR or talking with risk management, they all are on the side of the hospital not me. The rumor around work is that no one really has to pay when it comes down to it but I won't believe that until it actually happens

If you signed a contract stipulating this, no one is "one your side at work" -- you agreed to this voluntarily when you signed the contract and now you're obligated, same as credit card debt or car payments. It depends on whether there is a binding contract (and hospitals pay a lot of money to have good lawyers working for them, so I'm sure that any contract they have people sign is written to stand up in court) or this is just an empty thread the hospital is making to try to scare people (somehow, that doesn't seem v. likely to me, though).

Some employers in this situation prorate the amount required to be paid back (based on how much of the required time you completed) and some don't, some employers allow you to make installment payments and some require a lump sum -- it just depends on what's in the contract that was signed.

SaltyNurse · Jul 9, 2010

This was going on even when there truly was a nursing shortage and newgrads had their pick of jobs. Leave it to the hospital administration to make leaving an unsatifactory work environment punitive rather than fixing the problem(s) that contribute to poor retention.

juliaann · Jul 9, 2010

What is the specialty that requires this contract?

I'm not who you were asking, but my hospital does this for our IV/VAD team nurses that they train. I think that's the only nursing specialty we do that for.

They also require it of CNAs that go through our in-house CNA program if the CNAs do not stay for one year. Of course, the cost is signifcantly less. :)

clemmm78, RN · Jul 9, 2010

I think it is fair if they spent money to give you a good, lengthy orientation. After all, why should they incur the cost only to have you leave after a short period of time.

In my youth, I did leave ICU after only 6 months and I didn't understand back then how that was tough on them. They spent good money orienting me just to have me leave a while later.

Anyway, for the OP, I hope you get it worked out. Is it possible you misunderstood? I can't see how a hospital could make you stay and extra period of time, unless - and you don't mention this - you are switching to a specialized unit that again requires intensive and extensive orientation.

Zaphod, BSN, RN · Jul 9, 2010

not really. I personally know few people that left HCA contract positions and never had to pay back and it didnt go on their credit. They are even working for other HCA facilities now and/or their agency.This is only referring to a position for which they trained the new grad and are putting a price on the course you took. One of my friends had her PTO withheld. This is only for HCA though.

roser13, ASN, RN · Jul 10, 2010

" I wonder who is on my side at work? I certainly don't feel comfortable going to HR or talking with risk management, they all are on the side of the hospital not me."

I must admit that this type of thinking puts me over the edge. If someone signs a contract in good faith, agreeing to a certain standard of performance/length of employment, why is it suddenly a 'them vs. poor me' mentality when the employee wants to violate the terms of the contract?