Nurses employed by hospitals, nursing homes, and home healthcare agencies are often the victims of wage theft and abuse.
Nursing professionals – registered nurses (RNs), licensed practice nurses (LPNs), nursing assistants, and nursing aides – are critical to the U.S. healthcare industry, caring for patients in various settings. They deserve to be paid honestly and fairly for all the time they put in as well as for the costs associated with the services they perform.
But many nurses are forced to work “off the clock” and incur job-related expenses without reimbursement. These problems are so prevalent that the U.S. Department of Labor published a fact sheet detailing wage and overtime abuses in the health care industry, such as:
- Rounding down the minutes in nurses’ work hours
- Failing to pay nurses for time and mileage expense to and from assigned job sites
- Failing to pay nurses for attendance at lectures, seminars, meetings, and training programs
- Compensating nurses at “pay per visit” rates for non-visit work
- Forcing nurses to work during mandatory meal breaks and rest periods without pay
- Denying pay for time nurses spend updating patient charts, medical records, and other administrative tasks
- Failing to reimburse nurses for uniform and work-related clothing expenses
- Denying pay for time spent laundering, ironing, and maintaining uniforms and work-related clothing
Whether inadvertent or the result of stated workplace policies, these actions violate the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and deprive nurses of the compensation to which they are entitled.
Class action lawsuits have been brought by nurses and aides at several hospitals, health systems, and healthcare staffing agencies, including:
- Advocate Health Care Network
- AMN Healthcare Services
- Bayada Home Health Care
- Centene Management Co.
- Detroit Medical Center
- Gentiva Health Services
- Humana
- Kaiser Permanente
- Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network
- Liberty Health Care Corporation
- Maxim Healthcare Services
- Sutter West Bay Hospitals