New York Passes Mandatory Paid Sick Leave Measure

Across the U.S., numerous states and cities have been recently passing bills that obligate employers to provide paid sick days, which have generated debate among employers and legislators, and have impelled some to overturn the laws.

In May, New York joined San Francisco, Washington D.C., and others as the latest city to pass this sort of bill. Under New York’s law, companies with 20 or more workers will have to provide five paid sick days starting in April 2014. Businesses with 15 or more employees have until October 2015 to obey.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, (BLS), about 1/3 of all employees don’t have access to paid sick days.

Those who defend the bills say that mandatory paid sick leave is a public health issue that will help to deter the spreading of disease by letting employees who are sick or have a sick child stay home without having to worry about losing that day’s pay or their job. Other supporters see it as an issue of work-life balance that will allow workers to take care of their family.

However, some employers are against these laws because they’ll raise their businesses’ costs, which could prevent them from hiring new employees or potentially cause firings. Some claim that big employers already offer paid leave and forcing them to comply with new regulations just adds another burden.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research senior economist Eileen Appelbaum says that the average cost increase to most employers offering paid leave is a one-time rise of 2 percent in payroll costs. She claims that mandated paid leave levels the playing field, saying that “workers in low-paid jobs haven’t had access to paid leave and that’s tremendously unfair.”

The Family and Medical Leave Act, passed in 1993, promises up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to covered workers. Appelbaum, who is the former director of the Rutgers University Center for Women and Work, says that higher-paid employees might be able to afford unpaid time off, but most employees can’t go without a paycheck for very long.

According to the BLS, while employers are not required by law to give paid sick leave, around 75% do.

Prepare for Affordable Care Act: Tips for Employers

With the Affordable Care Act (ACA) set to go into effect in January 2014, many employers supporting group health care plans are rushing to get ready for the impending changes. Here are some tips on how to prepare for the upcoming implementation of the ACA:

1. Figure out how the ACA will affect your business. According to Forbes, when the ACA is ratified, it will oblige businesses with over 50 full time workers to offer affordable healthcare to them. The ACA is demanding employer coverage just for those who work over 30 hours per week for a period of a month. Corporations who wish to avoid providing this medical insurance for their workers and who are on the verge of having 50 employees may then look to temps and staffing agencies in order to evade being forced to obey the law or create more part-time jobs as another way to shirk the ACA’s policies. Companies doing this will undermine the legislation and its intentions of increasing coverage to more American employees.

2. Choose whether to “pay” or “play” and make decisions about your insurance. To “pay” is to pay employer-shared-responsibility penalties of around $2,000 per employee per year. To “play” is to offer employer-sponsored coverage to fulltime employees.

3. Think about adding wellness program incentives. According to a recent survey by the Midwest Business Group on Health, more than 80% of the country’s biggest employers are looking to implement a penalty and reward system to encourage their workers to get healthy.

4. Organize and give out obligatory employee communications like a summary of benefits and coverage, plan descriptions, etc.

5. Amend your Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy and security rules and processes before the Sept. 23, 2013, deadline for acquiescence with final regulations.

6. Pay the first comparative effectiveness research fees by July 31, 2013, and plan for future reinsurance charges.

Where Do New Nurses Earn the Highest Salaries in the US?

In a recent article in the nurses’ magazine Scrubs, a breakdown of nurses’ average pay per hour was conducted. Their article showed that while the Midwest boasts competitive pay rates for new nurses, the West Coast does have the highest pay per hour overall.

Nurse Zone reports that these are the average pay per hour numbers for top cities in the Midwest:

Billings, MT: $26
Cheyenne, WY: $24.50
Denver, CO: $27
Albuquerque, NM: $28
Fargo, ND: $24
Sioux Falls, SD: $23
Omaha, NE: $23
Wichita, KS: $22
Minneapolis, MN: $30
Des Moines, IA: $24
Kansas City, MO: $25
Milwaukee, WI: $27
Chicago, IL: $29
Detroit, MI: $28
Indianapolis, IN: $25
Cleveland, OH: $27

To read more about new nurses’ pay and what nurses in various cities have to say about their wages, click here.

To learn more about how nurse staffing factoring can benefit your agency – click here.

Medical Staffing: The Highest Demand Medical Careers

While medical jobs are practically always in demand, the following jobs in the medical field have been predicted to grow in the ten-year period of 2008-2018, according to a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

1. Home Health Aides. Expected to double by 2018, home health aides are projected to have the highest rate of growth. Though the pay for this job can be just above minimum wage, the availability of jobs and the fact that no college degree is needed have made this the job expected to be the highest in demand.

2. Medical Assistants. Another health career that doesn’t demand a college degree, medical assistant come second on the list with an estimated nearly 34% growth percentage from 2008-2018. Medical assistants help nurses and doctors with drawing blood, giving injections, taking a patient’s vital signs, and more. Though there are certification courses for medical assistants, most learn and are trained on the job.

3. Registered Nurses. Registered Nurses (RN) are supposed to have an increase in growth of approximately 22%. In the ten year period of 2008-2018, over half a million more RN jobs are supposed to be added. At the very least RNs need an associate’s degree, which is the most common level of education for RNs to have completed according to the BLS, though many also have a bachelor’s degree as well. Because of the higher levels of education RNs have, they’re paid more than medical assistants and home health aides.

4. Physicians and Surgeons. Expected to grow by 21.8% by 2018, roughly 144,000 jobs in these fields will be added. Physicians are already in such high demand today and experts estimate that as many as one of every ten physician openings remains unoccupied. Because of the high level of education required – a medical doctorate – to become a physician or surgeon, these jobs are among the highest paid in the healthcare realm.

5. Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) & Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN). Projected to have a 20.7% increase in growth by 2018, LPN and LVN jobs come in at number five on the list. LPN or LVN jobs don’t demand as much college as RN jobs so the pay is usually less for LPNs or LVNs but are above the pay grade and education levels of medical assistants.

6. Nursing Aides, Orderlies, Attendants. Nursing aides are supposed to see a projected 18.8% increase in growth from 2008-2018. While nursing aides and orderlies can be found in hospitals, typically they work in long term care or nursing homes.

If you are considering launching a medical staffing business, these fields may be your safest bet. Don’t forget – the higher the demand, the more cash flow you’ll need in hand. It’s a good thing PRN Funding is here and ready to fund your business with our medical staffing factoring programs. From nurse staffing to healthcare staffing programs – we work with staffing companies of all sizes to help them grow!

How to Manage Medical Transcription Overflow

Sometimes when the work starts to pile up, it makes sense to hand it off to someone else. Overflow is common in the medical transcription industry and outsourcing transcription work can play a big part in reducing turnaround times, eliminating errors and helping to minimize stress on medical transcriptionists.

A recent article from For The Record magazine seems to believe otherwise. It discusses a variety of ways that medical transcription companies can manage the extra work in-house instead of using outsourcing. What does this outlook mean for the medical transcription industry?

Read it for yourself and see what you think.

The Future of Medical Transcription Under Obamacare

In 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) introduced measures that lay a groundwork for the widespread adoption of electronic medical records (EMR) within medical institutions. Electronic medical records are a digital files containing health information about patients that are typically filled out by doctors.

With these electronic medical records now mandated by Obamacare, does that leave any room for flesh and blood medical transcriptionists? Medical transcription is the process of converting voice-recorded reports dictated by healthcare professionals into text format. The transcription industry has faced threats before, such as outsourcing and voice recognition software, but the mandated EMRs are likely to reshape the whole transcription industry.

Almost everyone agrees that completely electronic records will never eradicate the need for medical transcription. Instead, experts say that future transcriptionists will simply need to augment their existing skill set with new EMR structure knowledge. The job will evolve with technology, just like every other industry must.  Accurate health documentation is a must, and the human touch is still needed when it comes to doing so.

For more information, see How EMR is Going to Affect Medical Transcription Industry

Some Call for Medical Billing Act

Medical billing is a complex process, and like anything that involves money and credit it is sometimes controversial. While no one likes getting a medical bill, but sometimes it is even worse than that and customers are left with ruined credit over procedures and charges they don’t even remember incurring. Credit advocate Call 12 for Action is currently investigating medical billing issues, and are pursuing legislation that would treat medical billing the same as credit card billing. Credit card billing has the The Fair Credit and Billing Act, a strong consumer protection law that gives customers rights when disputing bills.

A big problem with current medical billing is that unpaid bills are sometimes reported to credit agencies before they have a chance to be paid or while being processed by insurance. Therefore, a current bill that Call 12 for Action is backing is the Debt Responsibility Act, introduced by Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Ore, which would prohibit credit-reporting agencies from using paid or settled debts to determine credit ratings.

A reformed billing process might cause cash flow issues for medical providers, and that’s where factoring comes in. Medical factors solve cash flow issues for facilities that need it, and if the bill passes then medical providers might just need it.

For the full article, see Credit Advocates Calls for Medical-Billing Act

Size of Staff Now Matters to 2014 Obamacare

While the Affordable Care Act doesn’t go into full effect until 2014, business owners should be aware that the size of their staff this year determines whether they are hit by penalties.

Most SBOs know by now that any company with over 50 full-time equivalent employees will be required to provide healthcare for their employees in 2014 or face fines. However, some aren’t aware that the government will be using staff data from 2013 to determine whether a company falls under the provision. According to the WSJ article Insurance Rule Will Go By Size Of 2013 Staff, this could change some SBO’s plans to change their staff next year. Rather than wait, they should make the changes this year while there is still time. A misunderstanding of the provision’s rules will have some companies blindsided with penalties in 2014.

Once business owners get wise to the rules, staffing in these companies may be rearranged and reorganized. Change often brings opportunity, and industries like temporary staffing will probably be the most affected.

Medical Billing and Coding Industry Predicted to Boom by 2020

While some industries are stagnant or losing steam in the slowly rebuilding economy, one industry is predicted to grow faster than any other- medical billing and health information.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that job growth in that sector will increase faster than any other occupation at 21 percent by 2020. Salaries for these positions are also expected to increase by over 20 percent over the next five years to match as well; all in all, great prospects for a growing field.

Any explosion in growth is necessarily followed by expansion. Expansion in staff or facilities requires cash on hand, which can be a problem for outsourced medical coding and billing services waiting weeks for payment from clients. Invoice factoring is one financing option that affords this industry flexibility, and the ability to pay obligations in a timely manner. As the industry grows exponentially, so will the cash needs of medical billing and coding businesses- and that is where factoring can help.

For the full article, see A Whopping 21% Increase in Medical Billing and Coding Jobs Salary

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