Hospitals and healthcare systems across the U.S. expect to see higher labor costs for the foreseeable future as administrators deal with an ongoing national shortage of nurses, doctors and mental health providers, a new report says.
The Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA)/Navigant survey questioned 101 CFOs and operations executives about their labor budgets, staffing shortages, and operating expenses. Nearly 8 in 10 (78 percent) said they expected labor costs to increase over the next year. Physician shortages are worse than a year ago, according to 35 percent of respondents, and 43 percent reported difficulty in filling open nursing positions.
According to Meg Bryant of HRDive, the shortage of doctors and nurses leads to hospitals offering more generous compensation packages as they compete for a limited pool of talent. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the physician shortage in the U.S. could reach 121,300 by 2030.
A recent report by NJTV’s Leah Mishkin, citing statistics from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, said New Jersey will have the third-largest nurse shortage in the country by 2030 — a shortage of more than 11,000 people. One contributing factor is that nursing schools are being forced to limit the number of students they can accept into their programs due to an increasing number of faculty retirements that constrain resources.