A Japanese company, Riken Research Institute, has designed the RIBA (Robot for Interactive Body Assistance) to help nurses lift and move patients. The 4 and a half-foot robot can lift over 130-pounds, and is outfitted with sensors to recognize faces and answer up to 30 unique commands.

Engineers are hoping to place the robots in Japanese healthcare centers by 2012.

Click here to read the entire article: Japan’s Answer to the Nursing Shortage.

Check out some of PRN Funding’s most recent factoring transactions:

A Nurse Staffing Agency Brings on a New Client
This nurse staffing agency owner was ecstatic when she heard that she had won a contract with a local healthcare network. Being an approved nurse staffing vendor in the system meant that she had the ability to fill shifts in five new facilities. The only problem with this growth opportunity is that in order to become a part of the network, the Alabama staffing agency owner had to agree to 60-day payment terms. She didn’t want to walk away from the opportunity, but she also knew that she would not be able to float payroll for that long.

The business owner remembered a postcard she had received earlier that month from PRN Funding, LLC, an accounts receivable factor who specializes in funding nurse staffing agencies likes hers. She dialed the toll-free number and within minutes was connected with a factoring specialist. After a brief interview over the phone, the agency owner realized that PRN Funding was presently accepting payments from the healthcare network, so she was pre-approved for funding. She factored her first invoice two weeks later and hasn’t had to worry about meeting payroll since.

A Private Duty Home Care Agency Gets Paid Quicker
Providing in-home private duty services and being reimbursed by a state’s Medicaid Waiver program has its pros and cons. On the plus side, state dollars are guaranteed to be paid, but one big drawback is it can take a month or longer to receive those funds. As her client list increased, the owner of a home care agency in Massachusetts was having difficulty adjusting to the state’s new invoice approval process. In short, it meant that the home care agency owner would have to wait 30 days to receive a check instead of the historical two-week turnaround time.

A month before this change in the invoice approval process was to take place; the agency owner contacted PRN Funding because she saw one of their posts on a social networking site. She was relieved to know that PRN Funding was already very familiar with various states’ Medicaid Waiver programs. At the conclusion of her initial conversation, the private duty agency owner filled out a factoring application. The following week, she factored her first monthly invoice and received cash the same day.

A California Healthcare Staffing Business Finally Opens its Doors
Without tangible collateral or a profitable operating history, this California healthcare staffing agency owner was unable to qualify for a line of credit at a bank. He found PRN Funding’s Web site late one night when he was researching small business financing solutions. The entrepreneur submitted an online application, and received a call from a healthcare staffing factoring specialist from PRN the next morning.

Within a week, PRN Funding had approved the agency owner’s first two clients, so he was finally able to start placing employees. The following week, the healthcare staffing business owner factored his first invoice, which provided him with instant working capital to pay his payroll taxes and meet his first payroll.

Click here for more information on PRN Funding’s accounts receivable factoring services.

The medical staffing invoice factoring specialists at PRN Funding received a mis-directed letter last week that we thought might be interesting news to our local Ohio healthcare staffing agencies. For the sake of our Ohio staffing agency owners, we’ve posted the letter below:

Greetings:

The City of Cleveland, Department of Public Safety, Division of Correction is reviewing the viability of pursuing service contracts with outside vendors to provide certain inmate services. Your organization has been identified as a potential partner is such an endeavor. Enclosed you will find information in the form of a “Request for Proposal” highlighting required services and products.

Please review the Request, and, consider how your business could, or, could not become a provider. A pre-proposal meeting will be open on July 16, 2010, for all interested vendors; at that meeting, and and all questions regarding services in question will be welcome. The application deadline will be July 30, 2010. A final decision will be made some time afterwards - it may be that no vendor is chosen, and, that the City will continue with its in-house system.

We ask that you carefully consider the enclosed Request as a potential new business opportunity, and wish, your organization the best during this process.

Sincerely,

Joseph Stottner, Acting Commissioner

Last week, BusinessWeek published an article entitled: Health-Care Bill Surprise: 1099 Nightmare, and we thought the small business owners who read The Factoring Blog should be aware of its contents.

In essence, the article says: Small business owners should be aware of page 737 of the recently-approved healthcare reform bill, as it contains a three-paragraph provision, inserted by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee to help offset the cost of the bill. In a nutshell, this insertion requires companies to report to the IRS payments of more than $600 a year to any vendor. The intent is noble: to capture $2 billion or more a year in taxes on income that currently goes unreported by contractors and small businesses.

Business advocates fear that the new rule will create a massive paperwork headache for small businesses because come 2012, the new rule will expand 1099-MISC reporting to include payments to companies, and for goods as well as services.

Read more here: Health-Care Bill Surprise: 1099 Nightmare.

National Nurses Week begins every year on May 6, the birthday of Florence Nightingale, who was the founder of modern nursing.

The American Nursing Association encourages agencies, employers and the general public to show nurses your appreciation this week.

Not sure how to say thanks?

Check out the National Nurses Week Media Kit for great ideas to create positive events that will show nurse appreciation while show-casing your organization!

In this week’s edition of Inside ASA, The American Staffing Association announced that the New York Staffing Association will have a featured luncheon speaker on Super Seminar Day (May 18).

General Counsel, Ed Lenz, intends to speak about how the new health care reform law will affect staffing agencies.

Attendees will also receive a comprehensive written outline of the new health care reform law that will include the following topics:

Major new tax provisions
Requirements for individuals to buy health insurance
Small business tax credits
Employer penalties if employees receive government assistance
Employer notice requirements
Medicare tax withholding obligations
Auto enrollment requirements for certain large employers

For more information, visit the New York Staffing Association web site.

President Obama signed the landmark health care reform bill yesterday, which will require the majority of employers (including medical staffing agencies) to pay a penalty to the government if they do not provide health insurance to their employees.

Temporary staffing firms are invited to attend the second national American Staffing Association (ASA) staffing law conference to learn how today’s laws will affect their businesses.

In fact, from April 20-21 in Washington, DC, ASA will offer attendees a full 90-minute briefing on the final health care reform legislation, and go into detail about what medical staffing firms will have to do to comply.

Other topics on the agenda include the following:

• Client indemnity clauses and other risks
• Background checks and negligent hiring
• Immigration developments
• Restrictive covenants and trade secret protection
• Union issues

A brochure, which includes full descriptions of all the conference sessions, is available online at http://www.americanstaffing.net/lawconference.

Have a question about invoice funding that hasn’t already been addressed on The Factoring Blog? Mosey on over to PRN Funding’s Web site, where healthcare business owners and cash flow factoring professionals can find a wealth of information.

PRN Funding’s president, Phil Cohen, has been busy writing various articles about factoring over the last few months. Have you been keeping up? Check out the Factoring Industry News section of our web site for his most recent contributions.

Choose from article topics like…

1. Comparing Bank Loans to AR Factoring
2. Top Five Reasons to Factor
3. Factoring Fees Defined
4. Ways to Secure Funding in a Bad Economy
5. Benefits of Home Care Factoring

Happy browsing!

Did anyone happen to catch the article: The Disposable Worker in BusinessWeek last month? If not, don’t fret, the invoice factoring specialists from PRN Funding took the time to summarize some of the interesting article’s main points below:

These brutal economic times has prompted more companies to use temporary workforces. Utilizing temporary employees gives these companies the ability to add and let go employees quickly and easily, relieving them of any kind of fixed costs. Their approach has created an era of disposable workers that will cause lasting damage.

“Older people who lose their jobs are often forced into premature retirement, while the careers of younger people are stunted by their early detachment from the working world.” Through their actions, many employers are laying the groundwork for employees to become alienated and dispirited.

Moreover, there’s a new trend in upper management, in which bosses are no longer rewarded fpr the number of people they supervise. Rather, they are rewarded for short-term profit performance obtained with less staff.

In addition, the article explained how offshoring has increased during the recession. Economists believe that most jobs shipped overseas will remain offshore even when things start improving in order to help companies continue to keep costs down.

The article referred to the European temporary market model as a way to improve conditions in the U.S. At least in Europe, part-timers and temporary workers receive government health insurance and are required to receive wages and benefits comparable to permanent employees.

AMN Healthcare recently reached out to over 1000 Registered Nurses and asked them to complete a survey related to job-satisfaction, and the results are in:

1. 44% are ready to make a career change within 3 years
2. More than 1/3 are unhappy with their current job situation
3. Nearly 60% currently hold full-time permanent positions at a hospital
4. 15% plan to switch jobs if the economy improves within the next year
5. 28% said they agreed with this statement: “I will not be working in this job a year from now.”
6. 46% of nurses agree with the statement “I worry this job is affecting my health.”
7. 29% plan to leave the nursing profession completely within the next 1-3 years
8. 55% believe that the quality of care that nurses provide today has declined compared to when they started in nursing
9. 36% said they either would not recommend nursing as a career to young people or were not sure that they would

Click here to read the more results from the AMN Healthcare 2010 Survey.