NATHO Newsletter - Winter 2009

President's Message
--by Mark Stagen, NATHO President, CEO, Emerald Health Services

Dear NATHO Members – I am pleased to be writing our inaugural NATHO newsletter! I am extremely excited at not only how far NATHO has come in our very first year but also with how many great things NATHO has ahead. I want to take this opportunity to give a very big THANK YOU to all our of NATHO members for making NATHO possible.

Additionally, I wanted to give special thanks to following NATHO Board Members who have been invaluable in helping launch NATHO. Without their help, NATHO never would have happened.

Scott Beck – CHG Healthcare Services

Garrett Hunt – On Assignment

Cynthia Kinnas – Clinical One

Larry Kraska –Medfinders

Jonathan Ward – Cross Country

Steven Wehn – American Mobile

Here are just a few of the things that NATHO is working on.

Membership: NATHO now has over 40 members representing over 80% of the Travel Healthcare staffing revenue in the nation. We have a large cross section of members including large, small, nursing and allied.

Collection Database: NATHO has negotiated an agreement with the NCO group to help firms collect money not only from Clients that don’t pay their bills but also from Travelers that owe firms money (i.e. apartment costs, cancellation penalties, etc…). As additional companies start using this database for collections, member firms will be able to see which Clients and Travelers owe NATHO firms money and will be able to make an informed business decision as to whether they want to work with that Client or Traveler. If you would like to learn more about this program please contact art.storck@ncogroup.com.

Tax-Free Per Diem FAQ: NATHO has been working diligently to produce a comprehensive FAQ guideline for how Travel firms should be paying their tax-free per diems to Travelers. This FAQ is being reviewed by top legal and accounting professionals and will be released in the near future for NATHO members.

Benchmarking Survey: NATHO has begun a benchmarking index that tracks the number of open Travel Nurse job orders as well as the number of Travel Nurses on assignment in our industry. This database is currently being beta-tested by the NATHO Board Members and will be released to the full membership in coming months. This database will also be expanded in the future to include allied Travelers.

Group Purchasing: NATHO is in negotiations with many service providers that our industry uses (furniture rental, apartments, car rentals, insurance, job boards, etc…) to negotiate volume pricing that will be available to NATHO members.

Traveler Cost Study: NATHO is working with Ernst & Young to conduct a survey comparing our Clients’ true cost of using Travelers vs. Permanent Staff. This study will analyze all of the additional costs associated with Permanent Staff (benefits, payroll load, recruiting, retention, liability, insurance, etc…) and compare them to Traveler costs. It is our belief that this study will favorably position Travelers as a much more economically attractive option for our Clients.

Standardization: NATHO is working to develop industry-wide standards and templates for many items including:

Traveler Contracts

Client Contracts

Clinical Checklists

Clinical Testing for Travelers

Annual Meetings: NATHO will have our annual membership meeting in conjunction with the Staffing Industry Healthcare Staffing conference (exact meeting date TBD).

Clinical Executive Council: NATHO has formed the CEC to develop standards of clinical excellence for our industry.

Many NATHO members are helping with various projects and we appreciate all of your help! If your firm would like to get more involved with NATHO, please just send us an E-mail!

Thanks for your time and I look forward to meeting you all at our 1^st annual meeting!!!

- Mark