Hey, y'all! I am compiling stories from folks who have broken predatory new graduate contracts, and have faced financial and career consequences as a result (I'm looking at you, HCA). The hospitals have held all the power in these dealings, and it's time we receive justice. Many of us have struggled and worked hard to provide excellent care for our patients under dire staffing and resources, only to receive backlash when we decide it's time to leave these unsafe conditions. I want to help tell our stories and prevent this disgusting practice to end. Here is my story:
I recently left a position at an HCA facility before my new grad contract was up (I had completed 3/4 of the two years), and I now owe them thousands of dollars. The unit I worked on was chronically understaffed, overworked, and underpaid. I continued to work hard and try to boost morale despite the daily strife. I volunteered to work in the COVID units back in April 2020 when little was known about the disease, and how to protect ourselves from it. Then my home unit was also turned into a PCU COVID unit, where I spent many of my shifts until I left in December 2020. My mental health had been deteriorating as a result of the stress and exhaustion. I had many conversations with my manager about the unacceptable conditions, and how it was affecting my mental health. No attempts were made to remedy the unit's situation. I told my manager I was accepting another position to take better care of myself. I am now being harassed by their collections agency, Benefit Recovery Group, to pay up the money I owe for the "Residency Program," (aka a three month orientation similar to what an experienced nurse would receive if they were changing unit specialties).
I don't believe I should be penalized for leaving unsafe working conditions after I had made multiple reports. I also cited my health as a reason for leaving, and it's only ironic that a hospital would come after an employee for prioritizing their health. Attempts at contacting HR and my previous manager have been futile. I am now frustrated, angry, and hungry for justice for myself and others who have been wronged by hospitals.
Please message me if you want to share your story. I will respect your need for anonymity if that is what your wish. Thank you for your time.
Specializes in Pediatrics, Pediatric Float, PICU, NICU.
Overall, I don’t think 99% of these contracts should exist. However, I have a hard time using the term predatory as well. It’s a legally binding contract. What needs to be done is nursing schools and mentors should be educating these new grads about said contracts prior to them graduating so they are more fully aware of the risks.
Overall, I don’t think 99% of these contracts should exist. However, I have a hard time using the term predatory as well. It’s a legally binding contract. What needs to be done is nursing schools and mentors should be educating these new grads about said contracts prior to them graduating so they are more fully aware of the risks.
I actually think predatory is a reasonable term.
If represented correctly, this contract locks the new grad into mandatory employment barring anything completely egregious on the side of the employer. And, essentially no recourse from it going to collections- the hospital knows full well that the new grad can't afford a lawyer.
No financially savvy person would enter a contract like this. I guarantee it allows for the employer to move the RN to a different department. "I know your heart was set on OB, but, welcome to psych."
The only reasonable way to look at a contract like this is to look at the penalty as the price of the training. Then to run a "what if?" scenario. What if I leave? Will it be worth the gamble of $XXXX if I leave? How will I pay this back?
This is similar to the financial scams found around military bases where a bunch of 18 year olds with no financial literacy fuel financial scammers. Lease a $50,000 truck and rent-to-own a $4,000 TV on your $20,000 salary. Sign right here.
Specializes in Physiology, CM, consulting, nsg edu, LNC, COB.
37 minutes ago, JKL33 said:
The experience, in this case, is the result of being on the inside. Of already having the job. Of not having to guess about how corporations do and don't engage with nurses.
I was referring to the OP, for whom this was a first job. As my sweet old grandmother used to say, “Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.” ?
Otherwise, there are plenty of experienced people who would want to continue to practice nursing in a hospital, given hospitals' historic (but no longer deserved) reputation for being the place to be. There have been plenty of excellent, experienced nurses who were happily and even loyally working in hospitals until hospitals' relationships and interactions with staff nurses took a nosedive and became spectacularly inappropriate. Which I believe was purposeful. It was meant to lead to the exodus of large amounts of experienced staff so that a pity party could be launched, experienced nurses could be disparaged, and the need to hire inexperienced nurses could be proclaimed.
Any accusations that this ^ is some sort of over-the-top conspiracy thinking in my mind will be rebutted with the idea that staff nurses in hospitals have been being treated increasingly poorly by hospital corporation representatives--spoken to insultingly, regarded poorly, refused basic resources necessary to perform their role, pushed beyond the brink of what a single human employee is actually capable of doing, and then gaslighted for not liking the treatment. Since leaving/refusing to tolerate that treatment is an utterly predictable response once someone has acquired the experience and the means to look elsewhere, it becomes very difficult for corporations to claim that they didn't intend for that very thing to happen.
(Getting off topic but as I've posted before I also believe they had/have an even bigger and much more lucrative reason to influence experienced bedside nurses to leave, and that is the fact that they hope to have as many of us as possible defect directly into the provider pipeline).
Some people are so set on criticizing a less-experienced nursing peer and posting garbage about the need for (completely one-sided) responsibility and ethics that they ignore the stakes and the scale we are talking about.
If the contract clearly specified the OP's responsibilities and the facility's responsibilities in writing, so that the OP would have known upon reading it that there was a financial penalty for not completing the contract, I don't think, unfortunately, that the OP really has a basis for saying that they shouldn't have to pay this penalty, if they chose, for whatever reason, to not complete the contract. The OP could seek legal advice.
I agree that some people do not properly understand the full ramifications of a contract, and may not have access to legal advice prior to signing contracts, and I think that is unfortunate.
I also agree that workplace conditions are often far from ideal - this is risk one takes when one takes a job - but again, even if the OP was experiencing this and was unable to or chose not to try to resolve the situation with their employer, and decided to leave because of this, which is their right, they still agreed via the contract to pay back a specified amount of money if they didn't remain with their employer for x amount of time.
I'm not saying that I think the situation was fair, or that the OP doesn't have reason to feel aggrieved about it, or that naivetee doesn't make one vulnerable to not fully understanding what a contract entails, just that, as I understand it, the OP incurred responsibility due to their decision to sign the contract.
I think the lesson for the future is to: 1) Be very careful about what one signs; 2) Ensure one fully understands the ramifications of a contract and the consequences for non-completion for any reason, and 3) Prior to signing a contract, forsee the worst case scenario, I.e. feeling one needs to leave the employer prior to completing the contract.
In another new grad contract thread in 2017, someone made the claim that training a new grad can "cost up to 60k" good to see it has only doubled in the intervening 4 years ?
In that thread I posted the following about grossly inflated "cost to train" claims used to justify extraordinary commitments in HCA new grad 2-3yr contracts where new grads only get 6 weeks of precepted orientation:
Exactly!
I broke my new grad contract. No hospitals in this area (I can't speak for the whole US) will hire a new graduate RN without a 'program' and a contract. You don't sign, you don't work. My particular hospital had no didactic portion. They assigned me to a nurse with no formal preceptorship training, paid that person 7% additional per hour (like... an extra $3-5/hr ish) and they sat at the nurses station shopping on Amazon and told me to find them if I had any questions. And this was the ER!
We did the math, for the 12 weeks, 36 shifts for 12 hours it was about $1500 cost to the hospital. So where did they get that high number they felt their training was worth?
I was told when I turned in my notice that I was now considered unrehireable and that would be relayed to future reference checkers. I contacted my union and they informed me (and HR) that this was unacceptable, and additionally the state of California had passed legislation that these programs were in fact predatory and the contracts unenforceable. I have not received a bill from my previous hospital and started a new job right away, where I have ratios and breaks and resources far beyond the first place.
Specializes in UR/PA, Hematology/Oncology, Med Surg, Psych.
I agree with JKL. The fact that these penalizing contracts are now so extremely common in some areas to the point that new nurses can't get employment without signing them is awful. They are a way for employers to continue to abuse nurses with low staffing and bad working conditions. All nurses should find this abhorrent. Instead of providing incentives to keep nurses by providing fair, nurse friendly environments, these employers use contracts to continue abusing staff.
These contracts are predatory because they're using them against people who they know can't really fight back. Similar to predatory lending which especially preyed on the elderly refinancing because their income changed due to retirement or COL changes. It was packaged as helpful but the banks knew they couldn't pay after a certain amount of time or fight back. Hospitals are preying upon new grads. They need jobs but can't work without contracts. Who doesn't see a problem with that? They can't simply go find another job like we experienced nurses because they don't have....... experience.
If hospitals treated their nursing staff with respect and common decency they wouldn't need contracts to hold staff hostage or risk financial ruin. People have jobs because they need money. This thread is an example of why they get away with it. Nurses make up the bulk of hospital employees yet we get shorted and disrespected at every turn because we're too busy fighting among each other instead of standing as one. That's just my $0.02.
We did the math, for the 12 weeks, 36 shifts for 12 hours it was about $1500 cost to the hospital. So where did they get that high number they felt their training was worth?
In the interest of fairness we must acknowledge that the very basic costs are way more than that.
You have to include ALL of your own wages during that time period, as you are not replacing a staff member. Even if your preceptor shopped on Amazon, she too was being paid her wage (plus some, apparently). They were paying two staff members to manage one patient load.
Let's be conservative and say that a new grad is offered $35/hr to start. 12hr shift x 3/wk x 12 weeks x $35 = $15000+. If your preceptor got an extra $4/hr for this, there's another $1700.
(However, the fact that your preceptor didn't precept does show that the company isn't even doing the basics to try to offer anything of additional value to new grads).
This argument is best made on the idea that even if it cost them a million dollars to train a new grad, they are benefitting based on the fact that the new grad's assurances and due diligence will only ever come from verbal information, while theirs will be in writing. Their game is to 1) look for people with the least knowledge of their workings and 2) capitalize on the fact that they are in a position to be able to straight up lie about what they are offering while being in a position to not have to put anything substantial in writing.
The second-best argument IMHO is that this is the company's business expense. Keeping enough staff to run their business is THEIR problem. And they are inarguably in the best position to do everything possible to mitigate turnover if the costs of repeatedly training new employees is unacceptable to them.
Glad you were able to move on without too much difficulty.
What acceptance of this enables is the practice of huge corporations running their healthcare business by churning nurses. They mitigate the costs of doing so by getting new grads to reduce the costs of the churn.
Don’t sign a contract then. You knew that you were committed to two years and if you didn’t complete the two years, you would have to pay it back. That’s what a contract is. That’s not predatory.
Yeah and usually a contract isn't benefiting the nurse. Somewhere in between the lines it will say 'we can do whatever the law allows' and that doesn't mean ethical. You can't attend to 5 dying patients at the same time.
JadedCPN, BSN, RN
1,476 Posts
Overall, I don’t think 99% of these contracts should exist. However, I have a hard time using the term predatory as well. It’s a legally binding contract. What needs to be done is nursing schools and mentors should be educating these new grads about said contracts prior to them graduating so they are more fully aware of the risks.