Many staffing agencies have been exploiting the severe shortage of health care personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic by charging uniformly high prices in a manner that suggests widespread coordination and abuse of market position, the AHA and American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living today told White House COVID-19 Response Team Coordinator Jeffrey Zients.

“The AHA and AHCA/NCAL have each urged the Federal Trade Commission to investigate this conduct as a violation of our antitrust or consumer protection laws but we have not yet received any response,” the letter notes. “We ask that you help ensure this matter gets the attention it merits from the federal government.”

Earlier this week, nearly 200 House members also urged the White House to investigate reports that nurse staffing agencies are taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to increase their profits at the expense of patients and the hospitals that treat them. 
 

Headline
A lawsuit filed May 19 by 25 states and the District of Columbia against the Department of Education claims that the agency’s final rule establishing new…
Headline
The AHA and other national health care groups sent a letter to members of the House and Senate appropriations committees, urging them to provide $1.…
Headline
The Department of Education April 30 released a final rule that defines the terms “professional student” and “graduate student” to determine federal…
Headline
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other federal agencies released a joint guide yesterday for organizations to apply zero…
Headline
In this conversation, University of Illinois Chicago’s Pauline Maki, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry, psychology, and obstetrics and gynecology, and Makeba…
Headline
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, M.D., and CMS Deputy Administrator and Director of Medicaid and CHIP Dan Brillman sat…