Why hosp cannot pay nurses more, according to one CEO...

[st4304]

Yesterday, I had lunch (Yes! actually sat down and had lunch for a full 30-min!) with my manager, who had just returned from a 2-day manager's retreat at a luxury resort a 2-hour chartered bus ride away (where all the managers received optional massages and horseback riding at the hosp's expense, of course!). She was telling me about what the guest speakers' had to say when she mentioned this one speaker who just happened to be the CEO at a rival hospital and his topic of why hospitals cannot afford to pay nurses any more than they do. According to him, the reason people with a BS in Business make more money than people with a BS in Nursing is because people do not mind paying more for services rendered in the business world (he did not get specific re what these "services" were), but when it came to healthcare, people do not want to pay alot for nursing care. I told my manager that was stupid. When I go to a hospital for care, do I tell the hospital/ins co. how much to pay the nurses? When I get any kind of healthcare services, do I get to tell ANYBODY how much I am going to pay for that service? Hell, no! They tell me how much I owe, and if I don't pay it, I get turned over to a collection agency. I told her those kind of comments were a cop out of the hospital "powers-that-be" to blame the public for nursing's inadequate pay, -- blame that should be layed at the ins companies and hospitals own feet!

Any comments?

Sherri

[Jo Dirt]

This is why I will live in poverty before I take a slave job "working for the man" again.

[banditrn]

if it were up to the insurance companies to pay the ceo how much do you think he'd make?

if a reasonable person had to pay moms nurse or joe ceo directly, who would make more you think?

and how bout the agency nurses (nothing against them) ...why can the hospitals afford to pay THEM more?

they have to rationalize something but ill bet he coulda done better than that.

you had lunch with your manager...wow ...how cool :)

I worked for about 3 year PRN at our local hospital - during that time they used agency nurses also - I knew from talking to those nurses that the hospital was paying the agencies anywhere from $50 to 75 an hour, plus, if they were given low census, they got paid.

So I thoght about it, and went to my supervisor, and offered a deal - I'd sign a 3 or 6 month contract with them, meaning I'd be working the shifts they assigned, including every other weekend, instead of just picking up the shifts 'I' wanted to work. She thought it was a great deal and went to HER boss, who came running right down to talk to me - and I told her that yes, I was serious, but if I were to do that I wanted $2 more an hour during the contract period.

The woman looked at me like I'd uttered an obscenity and said "Oh, we can't possibly do that!!" So I told her that was OK by me - just keep paying the agencies.:uhoh21:

[CHATSDALE]

squeaky wheel gets the grease

start squeaking

[Simplepleasures]

Trudy, I disagree that "we did it to ourselves."

Sadly, we're the last ones to realize that we really are the employees; they are the employers.

In other words, as long as we work for them, they can continue to do whatever they want.

Since this thread was started in 2001, yes, it's still relevant--the raise I got last year was wasted on my health insurance costs as our hospital changed providers--but the fact of the matter is, because we are not our own employers, we are not really autonomous.

We work for them; they call the shots. The End.

NO, NO, NO, Its NOT the end! Only if you are complacent or too scared its the end. Isnt this what UNIONS were created for, that we should not be victims of someones GREED?If something is not worth fighting for its not worth having.

[Batman24]

Not a nurse but in the process os prereqs. Just curious if most nurses are in a union. If not, would you want to be in one?! I am not too clear on how they work, but thought perhaps they would help some of you out. My guess would be that hospitals frown upon them, but that isn't based on any knowledge on my part just gut.

[CraigB-RN, MSN, RN]

At one point in my career I actually thought about getting an MBA/MS Hosp Admin. I remember getting told that in the medical world, salaries are sometimes based on how much reimbursment people get. Nurses dont' generate remibursment. PT', OT, Resp, and others actually generate measureble revenue, hence the increased pay for them and the relativly low amount that nurses get.

[sister--*]

Yep, saw that one first hand.

Filled-in at a very sm. off-site clinic owned by our facility when an unscheduled D.O.T. exam came through the doors. Okay, so where are the forms? No one knew. Turned-out there were none at this site. Consequently, the Doc had to turn the D.O.T. exam down.

Oh, the moaning that was heard for days. Poor guy kept going on and on about the lost revenue that would have been put toward his yearly total and how it would affect his next yrs. contract negotiations.

What an eye opener that was for me!

Let's see...an in-patient with an assigned nurse=$$$$ An in-patient with NO nurse. Hmmm, "POOF", bye, bye revenue!

[anouk]

I've often thought about this very topic, seeing that I am a nursing student as well as a former teacher. I think that the reason why nurses aren't payed more is because it is a female dominated occupation. Fields that have a lot of women, traditionally make less money than male dominated careers. Hince the fact that bus drivers in NY make about 60,000.00 a year, while beginning teachers make about 39,000.00. (I'm not saying that bus drivers don't have a hard job !)

Because women are seen as nurturing by nature (and we know that is not always true), fields that women tradtionally enter, are seen as a natural extention of women's abilities. The question becomes how do we get society to monetarily value what is traditionally seen as women's work?

[HealingHands327]

:roll By injecting more men into a women dominated profession !