AHA urges FTC to investigate nurse staffing agency anticompetitive practices

In a letter sent this week to Rebecca Slaughter, acting chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the American Hospital Association (AHA) urged the agency to protect hospitals and consumers from the adverse impact of anticompetitive and unfair practices by nurse staffing agencies. “The AHA has received reports from hospitals across the nation that nurse staffing agencies, which supply desperately needed staff to care for patients suffering from the COVID-19 virus and other conditions that require hospitalization, are engaged in anticompetitive pricing,” the letter notes, adding that one news article reported rates for traveling nurses have tripled for some hospitals. The AHA asked the FTC to investigate such practices. “Such outrageous rate hikes appear to be naked attempts to exploit the pandemic by charging supracompetitive prices to desperate hospitals,” the letter adds. “Hospitals have little choice but to pay the rates demanded and refrain from complaining publicly for fear of being cut off from the supply of travel nurses by staffing agencies that set the prices.”