Minnesota Temporary Health Care Employee Agencies Criticize New Law Controlling Fees

"Scores" of agencies that provide temporary employees to nursing homes in Minnesota have said that they will "go out of business" by Sept. 1, blaming a new state law that they maintain "unfairly limits their fees," the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. The new law allows temporary employment agencies to charge nursing homes up to 150% of standard nursing home wages, but prevents them from including costs related to Social Security, Medicare, workers' compensation or liability insurance. In addition, the state uses "year-old wage scales" rather than "current nursing home pay" to determine price caps. According to the agencies, the law will prompt a "critical shortage" of nursing home employees in many of the state's "worker-strapped" facilities and "endanger" patients. Nursing home industry groups disagree, predicting that care "actually will improve" when the agencies close and many of their employees return as permanent nursing home employees. However, some state lawmakers expressed "concern" about a potential shortage of temporary nurses and aides, who provided about 1.4 million hours of nursing home care in 1999. "We may have made a mistake," state Rep. Fran Bradley (R), chief sponsor of the legislation in the state House, said, adding, "But I wish we'd heard from these people a few months ago when we were debating the legislation." Although nursing home associations, nursing home unions and patient advocates "strongly supported" the legislation, most temporary employment agencies said that they "weren't aware" of the proposal. Bradley and state Sen. Linda Berglin (DFL), the chief sponsor of the legislation in the state Senate, said that the Minnesota Legislature may revisit the issue next session. In addition, Berglin has suggested that the state delay implementing the law by one month to allow temporary employment agencies and nursing homes to "better prepare for the changes" (Wolfe, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 8/13). For further information on state health policy in Minnesota, visit State Health Facts Online.