Welcome to the ShiftMed blog where we discuss everything nursing, from professional insights to healthcare holidays to helpful hints for working with us.
When you claim shifts with ShiftMed, you're part of a team working as a W-2 employee—not a 1099 lone wolf. Unsure of the differences between W-2 employees and 1099 contractors? Don't worry; we'll break it down in the simplest, most entertaining way possible and discuss how these employment classifications influence your payroll taxes.
In recent years, the healthcare industry has faced an unprecedented increase in demand for skilled nursing professionals. As hospitals and health systems grapple with persistent staffing challenges, the utilization of travel nurses has emerged as a popular solution. These temporary healthcare providers are often deployed to fill critical gaps in staffing, ensuring continuity of care and alleviating the burden on permanent staff.
Hiring quality, reliable healthcare professionals is tougher than ever. You've got nurses retiring, overworked nurses leaving the profession, and bottlenecks in nursing education. It's become a costly dog-eat-dog situation for healthcare providers trying to attract and retain top talent.
As healthcare continues to experience a labor shortage, wage inflation has become a significant issue. According to Premier Inc., the nurse base pay is up 9% since June 2021 and is likely to continue rising. Travel nursing agencies, which offer temporary nursing staff to fill in gaps in staffing, are expensive and exacerbate wage inflation. In fact, a recent 2022 report examined input from 272 hospitals in 32 states on registered nurse turnover, retention, vacancy rates, recruitment metrics and staffing strategies. The report revealed that for every 20 travel RNs eliminated, a hospital can save $4,203,000 on average. As a result, health systems and post-acute facilities are searching for alternative solutions.
Hospitals and healthcare facilities across the country are experiencing critical staffing issues in nursing. From recruitment and retention issues to mass resignations, the supply of skilled RNs decreased by more than 100,000 from 2020 to 2021. The shortage is pushing many healthcare facilities to ramp-up efforts to find alternatives to fill gaps in their healthcare staffing, including turning to gig workers like travel nurses or contract nurses.
As we turn the calendar to the new year, the excitement of the holidays quickly moves to the stress and anxiety of tax filing season. It's a universally shared stress. Every working American—whether full-time, part-time, hourly, shift worker, self-employed, or gig worker—must pay taxes to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and, in most cases, file a tax return.
Benjamin Franklin once said that nothing in this world is certain except death and taxes. From the teenager working a part-time job to the CEO of a multi-million dollar organization, every working American—whether full-time, part-time, hourly, salary, self-employed, or a gig worker—must pay taxes to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and respective state tax agency.
