LABOR COSTS SOAR BY MORE THAN A THIRD AT HOSPITALS IN 2019-2022

Hospital labor costs have soared by more than a third during the pandemic, a new report shows, the latest evidence of the pressures it has exacted on health care providers.

Labor costs rose 37 percent per patient between 2019 and March 2022, according to health care consultancy firm Kaufman Hall, which called the first quarter of this year “a perfect storm of expense, volume, and revenue pressures.”

The costs are weighing on even some of the largest chains, with HCA Healthcare and Universal Health Services recently warning that higher wages will continue to eat into profits. But while the biggest chains are still profitable, Kaufman Hall previously forecast that more than one third of U.S. hospitals would lose money last year.

Wages for traveling nurses, who made more than three times as much as staff nurses, accounted for the largest increase, Kaufman Hall said in a report released Wednesday. But shortages of other workers like lab technicians have pushed wages up as well, and there’s been an exodus of nurses throughout the pandemic.

Though hospitalizations for COVID-19 have declined, worker shortages are still looming. The Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts annual openings of more than 190,000 through the end of the decade, and Kaufman Hall said more than onethird of nurses plan to leave their jobs this year, citing a report from staffing agency Incredible Health. At least a quarter of those plan to move to contract nursing.