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Hospitals Bump Salaries and Bonuses

How eager are Memphis-area hospitals to find nurses?

A $5,000 signing bonus awaits people who qualify for some specialized nursing jobs at Memphis Veterans Affairs Medical Center, said Marilyn Kerkhoff, the hospital’s interim chief nurse.

And to keep up with local competitors, the government bumped up pay earlier this year for all Memphis VA nurses.

Now, a nurse with a two-year degree and no experience can earn just under $47,000.

A nurse with a master’s degree and significant experience can earn nearly $85,000 and high-ranking nurse administrators can earn even more, Kerkhoff said.

Especially valuable nurses can also earn bonuses just for staying with the VA.

The details of the VA’s compensation packages offer a glimpse of the increasingly sweet deals Memphis hospitals are making to recruit and hold onto nurses.

Many local hospitals won’t say how much they pay nurses, but the VA’s pay scale is public because the care system for former members of the military is part of the federal government.

The VA data offers a rough mirror of what other Memphis hospitals are paying nurses, since the federal government does a survey of the local market and tries to set its scale between institutions that pay the least and those that pay the most, Kerkhoff said.

Many other hospitals offer signing bonuses for nurses, she said, and some offer other perks such as paid time off to attend conferences and support for educational expenses.

Memphis registered nurses earn a median of nearly $58,000 a year, double the $29,000 median for all local workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Kerkhoff said there are many reasons for the nursing shortage, but points out one that’s sometimes overlooked. Nursing was once one of very few careers open to women, but they now have more options.

“So a lot of your good minds and bright people choose other professions now,” she said.

Patients are older and sicker and the VA is trying to help veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq deal with traumatic brain injuries and other problems, she said, so there’s tremendous demand for good nurses.

The VA is trying to fill roughly 30 nursing vacancies, including the home-based primary care jobs for which it’s offering the signing bonuses. The pay raise earlier this year seems to be helping, Kerkhoff said.

“What we’ve noticed since this salary increase came into effect is we actually have an increase in people calling us.”

(c) YellowBrix 2008