Last week, nearly 200 members of Congress signed on to another letter to the White House, urging quick action to reign in high travel nurse costs.
NPR reached out to a Biden administration official, who declined to speak publicly about a complaint to the FTC — an independent agency — but said that the White House has deployed federal surge teams, which include temporary staff that can help hospitals facing worker shortages and high patient levels.
The official said the White House also sends medical personnel from the military and has helped cover costs for National Guard deployments to hospitals with staffing shortages. Additionally, the official said the White House is trying to accelerate visa processing for 5,000 foreign health care workers.
Some states, like Massachusetts, are trying to create rate caps. Malara, however, said that could drive nurses away to other states to seek better wages.
More permanent solutions, Malara said, should be aimed at retention efforts and growing the pool of nurses. That includes increasing Medicaid reimbursements, providing more federal money for nursing schools, and reducing long wait times for nurses to get their licenses to work. The demands of nurses and other medical personnel will also have to be examined to provide more flexibility, fair wages and more autonomy in the workplace.
“Nurses that are working now… have more power than they probably ever had before with regards to where they work, and in regards to how much they get paid,” Malara said.
This story was produced by the Gulf States Newsroom, a collaboration among Mississippi Public Broadcasting, WBHM in Alabama and WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana and NPR.