End of Per Diem?

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I am not a per diem nurse, however, the large hospital organization that work for is ending per diem nursing, presumably at the beginning of the next year. We have been told that all hospitals are straying away from per diem, so those nurses would not be able to find those types of jobs in other hospitals either. This is some stipulation resulting from an Obama Care view... But many nurses are skeptical. Have any of you been urged to transition from the per diem position before you're forced to?

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No. Unless your company puts out an official memo it sounds like hearsay to me. Per Diem staff are a big part of the hospital staffing.

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Specializes in Hospice.

There will always be short staffing.......i think per deim is better than agency. that being said our unit is no longer hiring per diem. Im not sure why. we had several nurses leave that wanted to stay on per diem and were told no. i know our hospital still does it because other areas have posted jobs for it recently.

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The trend I've seen is to ending unit specific staff. Now all casual staff are required to be in a service specific float pool. The pool manager then directs them to the unit requiring staff.

Let's face it we all know that there are units nobody wants to work on and centralized staffing makes sure that all units are covered.

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Oh, I certainly hope not. I have two per diem jobs instead of a full or part time job. I can work when I want, don't work when I don't want to work, and no holidays. No benefits either, but it works out perfectly for being a full-time student!

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When I started per diem eleven years ago, the hospital was building an in-house float pool of per diem staff.

The plan was to eliminate ever needing to use agency or travel nurses. Per diem wages were raised to compete with agency wages.

It worked; the hospital saved agency fees by using its own staff. I don't see per diem going away anytime soon. Anyone who you don't have to pay benefits to or guarantee hours for is a bonus for the hospital.

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I don't believe this is because of "Obama Care", anytime a healthcare organization makes a crappy choice that is their scapegoat. More likely this is just another "cost cutting" measure.. I don't see all hospitals doing this.. Best of luck to yours.

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Nearly all the job listings I see lately are for per diem positions so I doubt it.

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Specializes in Acute Care Cardiac, Education, Prof Practice.

Yeah PRN at the hospitals I have worked at has always been part of a float/resource pool. Hence why I didn't want to work PRN after my daughter was born.

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Specializes in Acute Care Cardiac, Education, Prof Practice.
I don't believe this is because of "Obama Care", anytime a healthcare organization makes a crappy choice that is their scapegoat. More likely this is just another "cost cutting" measure.. I don't see all hospitals doing this.. Best of luck to yours.

Yeah I would need to see something representative from the Affordable Healthcare Act as well before I could believe there was a link.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

Au Contraire - PRN staff are becoming more important as labor budgets are tightened. These nurses are less expensive due to the lack of benefits. There is actually some math behind this. The ideal ratio is to have sufficient 'scheduled' staff (full time & part time) to account for the ADC (average daily census) 'mode' each day. Then PRN staff are added into the mix to care for increases in census or cover for absences. There are additional calculations, of course - but the end result means having much fewer call-offs

I'm not getting the tie-in to Health Care Reform, unless organizations are anticipating drastic income reductions because they can't achieve the patient sat & quality levels needed to maintain or improve their reimbursement. Sooooo tired of labeling this "Obama-care" Did we call Medicare "Johnson-care"? Do we describe lack of support for Women's services as "Bush-care"? (OK, so that was inadvertently funny :D)

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Specializes in Pediatric/Adolescent, Med-Surg.

I haven't heard anything about eliminating PRN at my hospital, and frankly, I don't see it happening. I worked PRN for my hospital until recently, and am not full time. During my time PRN I received a $6/hr raise. The hospital also became much more aggressive about hiring more nurses to work PRN.

I think you hospital is just trying to find ways to cut costs. Unfortunately, pts and nurses will suffer

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