If enacted, the Travel Nursing Agency Transparency Study Act, would require the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a study on the business practices and the impact of hiring “travel” nurse agencies across the healthcare field during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Members of the GOP Doctors Caucus, Reps. Greg Murphy, M.D. (R-NC) and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, M.D. (R-IA), introduced the Travel Nursing Agency Transparency Study Act (H.R. 8576), on July 28, 2022. The bill is a House companion to a S. 4352, introduced by Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND). If enacted, the Travel Nursing Agency Transparency Study Act would require the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a study and report to Congress, within one year, on the business practices and the impact of hiring “travel” nurse agencies across the healthcare field during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As a physician and former Iowa Director of Public Health, I believe that it is imperative for there to be transparency to ensure that travel nursing agencies are acting in the best interest of nurses and patients and not price gouging at the expense of our healthcare system,” said Rep. Miller-Meeks in a press release. The “GAO Travel Nursing Agency Transparency Study” would be required to address the business and payment practices of the agencies, including any potential price gouging.

The study would include the effects of whether the nurse staffing agencies are taking advantage of the demand created by workforce shortages, inflated rates, how much they paid contracted nurses, and if a significant percentage of the payments made by the agencies to the nurses who are contracted made by the agencies was for their own profits. Details on how States that imposed caps to travel nurses’ pay were affected by the market reaction to the caps must also be addressed.

Additionally, the study must include:

• The effect of how Federal funds, including the Provider Relief Fund and any assistance granted to a health care institution under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, were used by health care institutions to pay nurse staffing agencies throughout the workforce shortages exacerbated by the pandemic; and
• The extent to which travel nurse agencies have been acquired by private equity firms and the impact of the acquisitions on the profits of the agencies.

LeadingAge supports the Travel Nursing Agency Transparency Study Act. Earlier this year, LeadingAge and several long-term care and health care organizations sent a joint letter to the White House COVID-19 Response Team coordinator requesting the federal government to look into exorbitant nurse staffing agency rates that came into practice during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, to address this problem, LeadingAge wrote a letter to the Chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in October 2021, to urge them to investigate nurse staffing agencies’ conduct as a violation of our antitrust or consumer protection laws. Also, more than 200 members of Congress sent a similar letter to the White House requesting federal agencies investigate staffing firms conduct and pricing.

Additionally, LeadingAge has been tracking state-level legislation that addresses nurse staffing agencies price gouging. Connecticut, Iowa, Louisiana, Oregon and Tennessee have formally passed legislation regulating the staffing agencies. You can access the tracker here.