Safety Net Workforce Strained

https://khn.org/news/article/hospital-staffing-wars-bonuses-competition-for-health-workers/ needed a response. Hospitals are not the only healthcare providers suffering from staffing shortages.

Poaching of Staff Is Widespread

Great article on the effects of staffing shortages on rural hospitals (“Bounties and Bonuses Leave Small Hospitals Behind in Staffing Wars,” Feb. 7). I am concerned that all the press focus has been on hospital effects because they have great teams that can provide support for getting the article written. However, I work with safety-net clinics that are not federally qualified health centers. Our clinics that predominantly serve uninsured and Medicaid community members are also being affected and that is reducing access to care for these underserved communities.

Employees don’t even have to have certification to be poached, they just have to have done their practicum (they can use an oximeter, blood pressure cuff, and understand loading data into an electronic health record) and they can get an $8,000 bonus just for showing up at the hospital down the street. That means our clinics are doing the basic training for hospitals and losing all that benefit in communities most in need. Some of our clinics are having to reduce hours because they simply don’t have the staff to provide care to uninsured/Medicaid patients. This is incredibly frustrating and painful for underserved communities to face this, just as in rural communities. I hope we will not forget these communities in our efforts to explain the challenges in health care today.

— Phyllis Albritton, Colorado Safety Net Collaborative, Westminster, Colorado