HCA salary

[junejames]

Hi fellow ER nurses!

I am curious for those who work at an HCA facility or even not I suppose what certs you can obtain to add onto your base pay? I know HCA will give $1.50 for CEN & then also CPEN. But I'm curious what other certs anyone has that has boosted their base pay?

thanks,

June, RN

[lucymalfoy]

If that is your real name and you are from South Florida, you should definitely change your username to something that hides your identity :)

[thelema13]

My advice would be to RUN AWAY from HCA facilities. They have terrible management and treat their nurses like dog doo-doo. I worked for an HCA facility in South Florida, the ED was a joke (the rumor was most of the ED staff used cocaine and CCC's to stay awake all night) and when I was upstairs in PCU and ICU, they were consistently short staffed, never had a unit clerk for PCU or ICU (ICU charge would handle that responsibility, as well as being the tele tech for the entire hospital). They had really wierd staffing rubrics, such as if your department had 11 patients, you were allowed 2 RN's, but if you got 12 pts you were allowed the courtesy of a tech.

Just from personal experience, I would never work for an HCA facility unless they doubled my annual salary, because you do the work of 2 or more RN's. Med-surg nurses routinely ran with a 10-patient assignment, PCU had 6 patients, ICU had 3 (routinely).

Good luck!

[junejames]

No this is not my real name

[junejames]

Thelema13- thanks for the advice! I'm in the ED. So far it hasn't been bad but I'm newer. I've been reading a lot about how a lot of people hate working for hca. Made me curious. What hospital chain sl you like best?

[HikingNinja, BSN, MSN, DNP, RN, APRN, NP]

I've worked for HCA. Received nothing for my certs.

[sunripndrazbry]

I "grew up" in a HCA facility. Started as a new grad on tele then went to the ER after about 9 months. I worked in the same ER for 5 years and loved it! Then all of a sudden our entire management staff quit and we got a whole new team. Also, at that time corporate decided to make a ton of changes that effected the nursing care (new charting, different flow through patterns, demanding shorter door to whatever times, etc.). I felt like they were putting our nurses in tough positions that could have endangered patients, so I left to pursue travel nursing. I've worked as a traveler at another HCA facility and by far it has been my worst assignment.

I never got differentials for any of my certs, but I was paid to take them through my dept.