UPMC officials said Friday they are losing staff to traveling nurse agencies which pay triple what nurses previously earned.

They have responded by creating an in-house traveling nurse agency which will pay nurses $85 an hour to travel among UPMC hospitals in Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland.

They said the move is critical to offsetting the nursing shortage which threatens hospitals’ ability to handle surging cases of COVID-19 and other illnesses.

“It’s a win-win for UPMC and for nurses who like to travel. It’s a way for us to keep our own nurses, to recruit new nurses to UPMC and to bring back nurses who have left the system,” said Holly Lorenz, UPMC’s chief nursing executive.

UPMC, as have many hospitals, said the biggest present obstacle to caring for patients isn’t shortages of beds or equipment like breathing ventilators, but of having enough people to staff the beds.

Their traveling agency will also include surgical technicians, who will earn $63 an hour.

UPMC plans to begin deploying the traveling staff on Jan. 2 and has a goal of recruiting 800 traveling nurses.

Officials acknowledged the UPMC agency will likely lure nurses from competing hospitals. However, John Galley, UPMC’s chief human resources officer, said he believes those nurses would leave to become traveling nurses regardless.

He said there are no immediate plans to hire out UPMC traveling nurses and technicians to non-UPMC hospitals, but UPMC “would be open to that” if it would meet another hospital’s need.

https://www.pennlive.com/coronavirus/2021/12/as-agencies-lure-away-nurses-amid-shortage-upmc-responds-with-85hr-traveling-nurse-corp.html

>>15211952

UPMC

When Vicki Arnett’s husband Maurice was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer, traveling to Atlanta for treatment from their home in Pittsburgh was hardly her first choice. But the agreement between his local hospital and his health insurer was about to end. If they didn’t reach a new agreement, his care would be disrupted midstream.

The Arnetts were like thousands of patients caught in the crosshairs of an ongoing battle between UPMC, the dominant healthcare provider in the Pittsburgh area that has drawn criticism during the pandemic, and Highmark, a Blue Cross Blue Shield-affiliated health insurer dominant in the region.

A five-year agreement to work together was set to expire in 2019. As the deadline for a new agreement approached, patients insured by Highmark—many of whom had no other health insurance option—were at risk of losing access to their providers at UPMC.

The battle between the two nonprofit behemoths—and the impact on patients—is chronicled in a new documentary, InHospitable, that premiered in New York City earlier this month and is showing online at DOC NYC through November 28, 2021.

“We all know we have an incredibly broken system,” said Sandra Alvarez, the film’s director, in an interview. “You hear a lot about insurance, you hear a lot about pharma, you hear a lot about medical devices. But in the public consciousness, there’s not a lot of discussion about hospitals.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/debgordon/2021/11/24/new-film-exposes-the-big-business-of-nonprofit-healthcare-and-the-patients-caught-in-the-crosshairs/

UPMC Dig

After two years of bitter legal wrangling, Highmark and UPMC have signed a 10-year contract ending their longstanding battle and guaranteeing that Highmark customers will have access to UPMC doctors and facilities.

The contract will go into effect July 1, immediately after the expiration of the current consent decrees — meaning patients shouldn’t experience any disruption in their care.

Prior to this new agreement, 11 UPMC hospitals and the doctors affiliated with them were due to become out-of-network for Highmark members after June 30.

“This is a global deal” giving every Highmark customer access to UPMC doctors and facilities, Attorney General Josh Shapiro said at a press conference in Pittsburgh today. “It guarantees them access, and it guarantees it for a long time.”

Each side didn’t get everything they wanted, Shapiro said: “This is a deal that is fair to both sides. Most importantly, it’s fair to the consumers.”

“I’m proud to announce this historic settlement today that restores fairness and access to affordable care for the people of Western Pennsylvania and reinjects real choice into the healthcare marketplace,” said Shapiro. “Without this agreement, millions of patients — including seniors, cancer patients and working mothers — would have had their health care abruptly upended. Thanks to the patients who told their stories about what they stood to lose, Western Pennsylvanians now have their access to a fair healthcare system secured for the next decade.”

This decade-long agreement is the longest that UPMC has ever made with an insurer.

Though the deal was brokered between UPMC and Highmark, at today’s press conference Gov. Wolf credited Shapiro with pushing hard to make it happen. The related lawsuits that Shapiro had been pursuing, which focused on issues with the current consent decrees, will be withdrawn now that the new agreement is in place.

But while that legal battle is over, Shapiro said, “that doesn’t mean our oversight responsibilities will be withdrawn.”

“As Attorney General, I swore an oath of office to protect the rights of all Pennsylvanians,” Shapiro said. “That means putting people before powerful institutions, and holding powerful institutions accountable to the people they serve.”

This decisive resolution to the two-year legal battle between the healthcare giants and the state is a “big deal for all of us in Pennsylvania,” Wolf said, “especially a big deal for the folks living in Western Pennsylvania.”

https://nextpittsburgh.com/latest-news/highmark-and-upmc-agree-to-10-year-deal-with-global-access-for-all-patients/