Fed Reveals Plan to Spark Business Lending

According to the Credit & Collections World Wide web site, the Fed and Treasury officials announced the creation of a “new Term Asset Backed Securities Loan Facility which will lend up to $200 billion to holders of securities that back credit card, auto, small-business and student loans” this morning.  This is a strategic move is hoping to jump-start the issuance of new consumer loans and business loans backed by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Officials from the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve hope the move will “enable a broad range of institutions to step up their lending, enabling borrowers to have access to lower-cost-consumer-finance and small-business loans.”

Click here to read the entire post: Fed Unveils Plan to Spark Consumer, Business Lending.

Haley Marketing Group Announces New Web Site

The Haley Marketing Group dispersed a press release this afternoon announcing the launch of their new web site.  As a marketing and web design firm dedicated to the staffing and recruiting industries, The Haley Group’s new web site offers staffing and recruiting professionals the following:

Apparently, PRN Funding is not the only organization who has upgraded to a newer version of its web site.  Click here to see PRN Funding’s new web site.

Nurse Staffing Agency Convicted of Failing to Pay Taxes

A federal jury convicted the nurse staffing owner of Kirpal Nurses dba Kind Hearts for not paying $500,000 in federal employment taxes last week.  The nurse staffing agency owner, Francis LeRoy McLain of Livingston, MT, supplies temporary nurses to nursing homes and other healthcare facilities.  (Some other companies McLain has operated since 1987 include: Lifelines Care Inc., Lifelines Cooperative Care Inc. and Cooperative Nurses Inc.).

McLain sued the U.S. in 1995, claiming his nurses were independent contractors rather than employees, and then the U.S. countersued, and the suits were settled in 1998 with McLain agreeing to withhold pay over employment taxes for nurses who worked for his businesses.  However, nonpayment of employment taxes still continued, as reported by the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Minnesota district.

eBay of Working Capital Goes Live

Awhile back, PRN Funding blogged about The Receivables Exchange (TRE), an up-and-coming online accounts receiveable marketplace for business owners who want to turn their receivables into cash instantly by putting their invoices up for bid and specifying what kind of discount it is willing to offer.

In his article for The New York Times, writer Brad Stone said “The site provides a much-needed financing option for companies that are finding the doors locked at traditional credit markets.  It could also be a safe financing alternative for distressed start-ups that might otherwise have to sacrifice equity in a conventional bridge loan.”

Business owners and accounts receivable factoring firms are both intrigued by and weary of the developing company, and only time will tell how successful or unsuccessful The Receivables Exchange will be.

Primary-Care Doctors Leaving Medicine in Droves

The Physicians’ Foundation recently conducted a survey of 150,000 doctors nationwide, and 49 percent of the 12,000 respondents reported that they were considering leaving medicine because of “too much red tape generated from insurance companies and government agencies.”

Last week’s American Medical Association annual meeting predicted a shortage of 35,000-40,000 of primary care physicians by 2025.  According to a survey published in the September issue of the Journal of the Medical Association, only 2 percent of med school students plan to practice family medicine.

PRN Funding has written before about using temporary nurses to help fill the gaps when it comes to the nurse shortage.  Perhaps this physician shortage is an opportunity for locum tenens to seize.  What do you think?

This post referenced an article on CNN.com.  Click here if you want to read the entire article: Half of primary-care doctors in survey would leave medicine.

RNs Status Gets Boost with Medicare Changes

According to an article in yesterday’s Staffing Industry Analysts Daily News, a new survey conducted by AMN Healthcare Services Inc. said the new Medicare changes will make hospital revenue more dependent on nurses than in the past.

The write-up states: “Sixty-two percent of chief nursing officers said an ongoing Medicare effort to tie hospital reimbursement to patient satisfaction would enhance the status of nurses. In addition, new rules where Medicare will not pay hospitals for care provided as a result of diseases acquired at hospitals, known as “never events,” will also enhance the status of nurses, according to more than 54% of chief nursing officers.”

Click here to read the post: Medicare changes could boost nurses’ status.

Nurses and Medical Coding Careers

ADVANCE for Health Information Professionals ran an article in its e-newsletter: RNs Turning to Coding Career, discussing how RNs have the ability to “increase their earning potential and augment their job security” through medical coding.

The article discusses how nurses are starting to take advantage of special credentialing like the Certified RN Coder (CRN-C) offered by the American Association of Clinical Coders and Auditors (AACCA) and the Certified Professional Coder-Hospital (CPC-H) offered by the American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC).  The article states, “RNs intimately know their way around a patient chart, making them among the best qualified individuals to choose accurate diagnosis and procedure codes for billing purposes.”

There were quite a few follow-up comments to this article debating the advantages/disadvantages of RNs entering into the HIM arena.

Q: What do you think about RN medical coders?

Healthcare Staffing Provider Changes Corporate Name

According to a press release that appeared in the Staffing Industry Analysts‘ Daily News, the “Arlington TX-based healthcare staffing provider Nursefinders Inc. has changed its corporate name to Medfinders Inc. to reflect the broadening scope of its service offerings.

It will continue doing business through its various brands, namely: Nursefinders for local nuse staffing; Nursefinders Homecare, provider of specialty programs for homecare market; SingleSource, provider of managed staffing programs (MSPs); Club Staffing and Resources On Call,  for allied health staffing; Nursefinders Travel, National Healthcare Staffing and TVL Healthcare, for travel nursing; Linde Healthcare, offering locum tenens (contract physicians) recruitment services; and Kendall & Davis, for physician permanent placement services.”

The CEO of Medfiders, Bob Livonius was quoted in the press release as saying: “Having expanded well beyond the provision of nurses alone, our new corporate identity, Medfinders Inc., better reflects our current market leading position in all four sub-sectors of healthcare staffing, per diem nursing, travel nursing, allied staffing and physician recruitment, as well as homecare.  Offering the greatest breadth and depth of service in the industry is fundamental to our strategy of partnering with healthcare facilities to deliver value-added workforce solutions that better address staffing challenges, compliance standards, cost management goals and quality patient outcomes.”

Staffing Temp Nurses in a Bad Economy

David Searns of Haley Marketing Group had a great article in Net-Temps Recruiters e-newsletter, entitled: How to Sell When Someone Says “We’re Not Hiring.”  In the article, he discusses how the poor economy is affecting all sectors of the temporary staffing industry–in that facilities are cutting costs and decreasing their temporary staff.  If you want to succeed in this economic downturn, Searns suggests the following:

1. Stop being reactive
2. Go back to sales 101
3. Find ways to drive out costs
4. Capitalize on opportunities
5. Utilizing strategic recruiting

Click here to read the details on how to combat the “we’re not hiring” phrase.