Medical test needed by travel nurse

Imagine you’re lying on a beach somewhere in southern California as the sun begins to settle just past the horizon, or maybe you picture yourself on horseback making your way down a mountain through the woods from a long trail ride. While you might associate these scenarios with activities you’d do while on vacation, some people are lucky enough consider it to be a part of their day-to-day lives. Who are these lucky people? They are traveling nurses and joining them is easier than you think.

Travel nursing is a unique and specialized field of nursing which allows certain healthcare professionals to circle the nation and help hospitals fill positions during this constant and growing nursing shortage. As a registered nurse during this nursing shortage, you are in demand. Unlike permanent positions, travel nursing allows you to tour a new city, meet new people, put your clinical skill set to the test while learning new ones, all within a 13 week assignment. At Medical Solutions you will be given the chance to work beside some of the country’s most distinguished healthcare professionals, with the opportunity to earn a great income, receive free housing and travel, excellent health benefits and a retirement program that begins the day you start your first assignment.
Employers must compensate employees for travel expenses and nonwork time spent receiving treatment for exposure to blood-borne diseases while on the job, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

In Secretary of Labor vs. Beverly Healthcare-Hillview, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a nursing home operator was given sufficient notice that such expenses were covered under the Bloodborne Pathogens Standard. That 1991 standard requires employers to make treatment available at no cost to employees for occupational exposure to blood-borne diseases, such as hepatitis and HIV.

Beverly Healthcare-Hillview argued that it fully complied with the plain “at no cost” language of the standard, which it said did not encompass compensation for nonwork time or travel expenses.

The case involves two Beverly nursing home nurses who were poked by needles while at work in separate incidents in 2002 and 2004. Each subsequently sought treatment at a designated off-site medical facility during nonwork hours for potential exposure to blood-borne diseases, according to court papers.
Beverly paid for the cost of the medical evaluations and procedures, but did not reimburse the employees for travel time or the nonwork hours they spent receiving their initial and follow-up treatments. It argued that the ordinary meaning of the word “cost” is the amount charged to purchase goods and services and that the two employees were not “charged” for nonwork time or travel expenses.

Beverly was given two citations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for failing to reimburse the employees for travel and nonwork expenses.

Beverly appealed to an administrative law judge, who upheld the citations. A two-member majority of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission subsequently reversed, and the 3rd Circuit on Thursday again upheld the citations against Beverly.

The appeals court said that while the relevant “at no cost” language in the standard is ambiguous, various OSHA directives and opinion letters provide sufficient notice of the Secretary of Labor’s interpretation that the standard includes compensation for travel expenses and nonwork time.

The appeals court vacated the commission’s order and remanded the case for further proceedings.

“We are pleased that the court upheld the department’s position,” a Labor Department spokesperson said in an e-mail. “The court ruled that OSHA’s interpretation of the requirements of the blood-borne pathogens standard is reasonable and that the agency has provided adequate notice to the public of those requirements. The decision is an important affirmation of OSHA’s practices.”

Attempts to seek comment from Beverly Healthcare’s attorney were unsuccessful.